


Cadence and Caesura

by orphan_account



Series: Six Degrees (More or Less) [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2014-04-18
Packaged: 2017-12-07 23:02:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 51,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/754102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erszébet is a statistics major living in a postage stamp apartment in Stockholm with her roommate Feliks, a math whiz with a penchant for sassy retorts and secrecy. She is happy and decisive about where her life is going, but when a beloved high school teacher comes to Stockholm to attain a masters degree, various connexions that had long since died since secondary education return to the surface. This unfolds a complicated mess of feelings and unresolved tensions, ones that she is not sure she would like to delve into.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: When I first started this story about a year ago I had just moved to Europe (I grew up in China) so I realise now that there are a lot of errors regarding university life. I had watched a few American tv shows and assumed that all western colleges had the same basic format. Therefore there are many inaccuracies (especially majors/minors, which don't exist outside of the US and Canada). Hopefully it doesn't prevent the story from being enjoyable, because fixing it at this point would be a royal pain. Enjoy!

Erzsébet first enrolled in a statistics class junior year. Her secondary school required five credits of mathematics, through trigonometry analysis and one additional elective in the field. She despised math up until that point, hated forcing herself to study for exams and completing redundant homework assignments. Erzsébet had never displayed any particular talent for analytical reasoning, but that stats class changed her life. The teacher, a young, wiry blond man with a serious face but a talent for explanations and speech, transformed her from a B-C math student to an A+ math student. And now here she was, filling out paperwork for a major request form in statistics.

“Erzsi, you’re totally insane,” Feliks drawls as he neatly inscribes ‘applied mathematics’ in flowery script.

Erzsébet raises an eyebrow. “Says the guy majoring in applied mathematics and minoring in biochemistry. Are you trying to kill yourself?” she inquires teasingly as she drops the clipboard onto the end table, praying that she’ll remember it in the morning.

“Hey, applied mathematics is a quite respectable degree. Also, the biochemistry should be totally fun,” he replies as he shoves his world literature notebook into his messenger bag and begins flipping through his Japanese folder- clearly searching for something.

“What on earth are you going to do with applied mathematics?” Erzsi asks as she turns to the stove to start dinner.

“I’d like to go into medicine, or maybe be a teacher. I’m not really sure,” he replies easily. “Are we making hideg meggyleves?” Feliks queries, referring to one of Erzsi’s favorite dishes- a chilled sour cherry soup.

“Yeah, I found some delicious cherries at the market. I haven’t seen them this plump and fresh for seasons,” she says appreciatively, grabbing the plastic bag filled with cherries from the refrigerator.

A phone buzzes loudly, and Feliks fumbles into his jacket pocket. “Sorry, Erzsi, this will just take a minute.”

“Who is it?” Erzsébet asks.

“No one you know,” he replies flippantly. She raises her eyebrow but says nothing. When she first met him, four or five years ago, he responded to everything with a cheeky retort. Now he has slowed down, started listening more and blabbering less. He’s still a bit sassy, but it has been a while since he directed it towards her. Erzsébet sighs and cranks the heat up on the stove. She hopes he hasn’t gotten himself into any trouble.

“I’m back,” Feliks says, although it's a rather unnecessary statement.

“Good. Be a dear and get a pot of water?”

Feliks nods, and runs the water warm for a moment before ducking the cumbersome pot under the spigot. He taps his foot on the uneven floor in a rhythm that is undoubtedly from orchestra practice. He plays the piano. Erzsébet’s only ever tried her hand at the guitar, and she rarely practices. Part of her wishes that her parents had broadened her horizons as a child, opened her up to new experiences and such, but she supposes that Mr. Zwingli accomplished that with his brilliant statistics teaching.

“You okay? You seem kinda distracted,” Feliks observes conversationally.

She smiles as he passes her the heavy piece of cast iron. “Says you, with your taking secret phone calls and everything.”

“Touché or whatever,” Feliks replies waving his hand dismissively. They’ve always held information from each other, but they always come out sooner or later. It’s become an endearing dance of keeping and spilling secrets.

“Do we have powdered sugar?” Feliks asks as he stands in front of the open pantry with a clinical glare at the various canned and bagged ingredients.

“It’s right in front of you,” Erzsébet says with a smirk, snatching the bag before he can even blink.


	2. Chapter 2

“You look beat,” Erzsébet comments laconically as Tino throws the door to their apartment open exhaustedly, a blossoming bruise on his cheek and visible skin coated with grime.

“The mean guy at the garden hit me with a shovel. He said it was an accident, but it definitely wasn't,” Tino fumes, opening the refrigerator and pouring himself a glass of water. He used to be their roommate, briefly when he first moved to Stockholm. He still has the keys, and neither Erzsi nor Feliks have ever complained or asked for their return. He closes his eyes briefly, and fills dusty lungs with pure air. 

“Maybe you should stop volunteering. They don’t even give you the vegetables, they just use your labor and recently, hit you with garden tools,” Erzsébet retorts as she puts a bagel in the toaster. She doesn’t have any classes until late afternoon, because she got her freshman math credit before leaving secondary school. Feliks is off somewhere in one of his ridiculously useless and ridiculously difficult chemistry class. 

“I like volunteering,” Tino says, running a hand tiredly through his blond hair, lightened by all the time in the sun. 

“Yeah, but you’re also majoring in environmental science. I’ve seen the stuff Feliks does for that class. Are you even passing your courses with all the extracurricular things? Community gardening, orchestra, medical clinic work-“

“And I design museum exhibits,” Tino pipes up pleasantly, face betraying none of the complete exhaustion he must be feeling. “And yes, I’m passing.”

Erzsébet raises her eyebrows critically. She can see how stretched thin he is, spread across so many different activities. “How much sleep do you get?”

“Three or four hours,” he replies proudly.

She shakes her head sadly. Erzsébet has tried talking to him before about this, but he waves her off, claims that he likes being busy, which is probably true, but it's reached a point.

“Would you mind if I used your shower? Berwald’s 'friends' Lukas and Mathias are over and, goodness gracious, they're certainly testing my nerves. I'm used to quiet in that apartment, but within ten minutes they're already in a huge argument about-"

Erzsi nods sympathetically. Despite how fond she is of Tino, she’s not interesting in hearing any additional parts of his rant. She’s actually met Berwald’s friends once before, so she can at least agree that they are hard to be around. She nods him away and reminds him where the towels are, since Feliks sees fit to reorganize everything and change which cabinets constitute which items at least once a week. She really does need to talk to him about that, she realizes, as she opens a drawers that had previously contained towels but now contained spatulas and wooden spoons.

Half an hour later, Erzsébet is sitting at the computer, clicking away at an assignment she really should have began earlier, answering lab questions about a lab she didn’t even end up coming to. She guesses wildly at first, and then she realizes with dawning horror that some of these questions are so complex that she doesn’t even know how to guess anymore. Professor Yandra, despite his apparent lack of care for any class he teaches, sure knows how to think up impenetrable labs. Erzsébet sighs, and stretches back in the desk chair with a yawn. It would be quite lovely if she had another week to do this.

“So, I was wondering-“ Tino’s voice is suddenly behind her. Erzsébet almost flinches; she had completely forgotten that he was even here. “If you wanted to come with me to the biology room to meet with this guy that I have to make up some lab with.”

“Oh my god!” she exclaimed. It was Tino’s turn to almost flinch. “Is that the snail movement lab? ‘Cause I was sick that day and my write-up is due tomorrow! You are a savior Tino Väinämöinen! Your partner won’t mind if I sneak in and work with you guys, right?”

Tino shrugs. “I wouldn’t think so. He’s not even in my class, he’s just tutoring or something.” 

“Tutoring biochemistry?” she asks suspiciously.

“It’s his major,” he clarifies quickly. Erzsébet seems to be dubious of anyone capable of doing things she is not capable of, he notes vaguely as he picks up his backpack and brushes his washed hair back from his eyes. Tino recalls that he needs a haircut. 

“What are you waiting for?” Erzsébet asks impatiently, tapping her foot by the door as she hurriedly tied her hair up, simultaneously wrestling her ancient Intel laptop into her bag, along with the empty lab packet.

“You really should have said something to the teacher,” Tino suggests lightly. “Professor Yandra allows makeup work, you know. All teachers do, if you have an excuse note.”

“I forgot, I forgot,” she replies distractedly as she snatches her keys off the desk and opens the door.

Tino gives her a sweet smile, but there is a friendly smirk in his eyes. “Clearly,” he says in a sing-song voice.

"Oh, shut it. Besides, I'm not going to be taking advice from someone who only gets three hours of sleep," Erzsébet replies without missing a beat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own Intel, nor am I trying to imply that you should either buy or not buy this particular computer.


	3. Chapter 3

“Hello, my name is Toris Laurinaitis,” a young man introduces himself in stiff English, getting to his feet and sticking out his hand to both of them. Erzsébet has never encountered him before. He’s rather small in frame and height, with brown hair that falls in shard of glass almost down to his shoulders. His eyes are pretty, tried and true in a pleasant shade of green.

“Thanks for helping us,” Tino replies quickly. “This is my friend Erzsébet. She missed the lab due to illness,” he adds, obviously seeking to provide as much background as possible.

“Ah, I see,” he says, flipping open a condensed notebook. “You are speaking of the lab on the biological and chemical properties found in snail slime and how it effects the internal functions of the snail in question?”

Erzsébet blinks. “Sure, I guess so.” 

“Okay. You are in third period?”

"Yes, I am," Tino says.

“Of course,” Toris replies, setting out six Petri dishes and another small glass container labeled in neat capital letters: YANDRA SNAIL LAB. 

“So, what’s your minor?” Erzsébet asks conversationally. The entire atmosphere is horribly awkward- she can almost hear the squelch of the snails on the plastic in the silence. She plugs in her calculator to her computer to track the movements, but in all honesty the lab isn’t really that difficult, especially with Toris guiding them along the way.

“Applied mathematics,” he replies rapidly, the words sliding together into one syllable. 

“Ah! My friend is majoring in applied mathematics and minoring in biochemistry. That’s funny, your plans are switched.”

He doesn’t reply, which is just plain uncomfortable, although she thinks that his English is probably just a bit too elementary to follow every train of conversation intuitively. Tino pokes gently the snail with the toothpick to measure the density or something, but it seems as if he is collecting the data, so she can copy it off him later. The teacher allows it, so it’s not even dishonorable. 

“Do you have all the data that you require?” Toris inquires as he presses a button on his calculator that makes the screen flickers for a moment and then shuts off. “I believe that we have finished the extent of the lab.”

“Thank you very much,” Tino thanks him gratuitously, nodding his head and folding up his paperwork. 

“It was no trouble,” Toris waves him away, grabbing his briefcase and leaving in a hurry. 

“He’s an odd one,” Erzsébet comments once she is sure that he is gone. His footsteps echo in the hallway in a hurried run, as if he’s sprinting.

Tino shrugs. “He didn’t seem that odd to me, just kind of quiet.”

“Do you want to get something to eat?” she offers, gesturing briefly towards the window, referring to a nearby café that served lunches and light dinners consisting of salads, sandwiches, and soups. It was nice enough, with fair prices and not too crowded, especially at 2 p.m.

“Sure, Lukas is supposed to be there until 3:30 and I can’t even risk coming within a three mile radius.”

Erzsébet shrugs. “Sounds good to me.”

The bell above the door dings, announcing Tino and Erszi’s entry to the Soup and Crackers café. 

“Welcome,” a high school dishwasher greets them from behind the counter as he towels down a large skillet.

They take their seat, and a familiar waiter gives them a weak wave. “What would you guys like to eat?” an acquaintance of theirs asks, opening his notebook and clicking an inexpensive pen into function.

“May I please have a chicken noodle soup?” Tino says, closing the menu. He’s been here enough to have most of the options memorized.

“And I’ll take the Greek salad wrap,” Erzsébet adds, and Matthew nods politely before disappearing back into the kitchen. It’s probably a slow day for them, and it’s not even lunch or dinnertime so it seems as if he is the only staff member here besides the dishwasher. 

“How do we know him again?” Tino asks curiously, eyeing him like he knows him from somewhere but can’t quite put the face to the name and background.

“Matthew dated Arthur for a few months a couple years ago, remember?”

Tino nods slowly. “Right, right. Do you have any classes with him?”

Erzsébet mentally goes through her two schedules, trying to fit his face in with any flitting memories of the past few weeks. “I don’t think so- oh! Actually, we have Calculus 3 together.”

They talk for a few more minutes, and finish their food before parting their separate ways. Erzsébet is walking back to the apartment when her phone dings twice, and she shoves her hand in her pants pocket to retrieve it. The first text to come through is from Feliks, alerting her that she needs to come back to the apartment building right now. Before she can even open the second text, a call comes through.

“Hey, Feliks. What’s wrong?” she asks. While he does have a tendency to exaggerate, he’s never texted her during the middle of the day with such urgency- except for when their place was ransacked and robbed.

“I just broke my arm,” Feliks blurts into the phone.

“What! How?” she asks in response passionately.

There is a hesitant pause. “It’s kind of a long story, can you meet me in the ER? I’ll have to like fill out paperwork and I won’t be able to do that or anything.” He sounds frustrated.

“Where are you?” Erzsébet asks. 

“I’m on a bus, heading towards the Södersjukhuset,” Feliks relays, and she knows he is telling the truth when she hears the bus lurch in the background static. 

Erzsébet starts walking quickly. She’s a while away, but she doesn’t have a license yet and taxis are not too common so on foot is shall be. 

“Can you describe the appearance of the injury?” she asks. She took a wilderness first aid class in Budapest on vacation last year, and if her knowledge doesn’t fail her, she might be able to help.

“It hurts a lot!”

Erzsébet takes a deep breath to steady herself. “I don’t know- it’s like I have another joint in my arm or something! Also my head is bleeding- people are looking at me weird and someone just asked if I wanted an ambulance- I can’t feel my arm- Erszi tell me what to do!”

“Get out of the bus and call 112,” she orders. 

“Are you sure? I can just-“

“Do it!” she shouts at him into the phone as the hospital begins to approach in her line of vision. She has broken out into a full blown run. 

“Don’t yell at me!” he yells back, clearly hysterical.

Erzsébet takes a deep breath to fill her unexpectedly empty lungs. “Please do it. It’s going to be okay,” she says slowly. Suddenly, in the background of the phone call- she hears a familiar voice softly in the background. Erzsébet can’t make out the exact words- but it sounds like a question. Then the phone static increases and a different voices speaks out clearly onto the phone. “Hello, Erzsébet, this is Toris. I will turn off this call in approximately five seconds when I call 112. We are in front of the science facilities.” The phone clicks, and she takes a long breath before continuing to the front door of the hospital. The doors are automatic, and she walks in quickly and signs herself in at the desk. If she recalls correctly where the science building is, they will be here soon. Her feet ache from the run on difficult shoes, but she does not want to sit down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I live in Finland, and I have never entered this particular hospital in Sweden. I do not own this hospital and this story is not affiliated in anyway Södersjukhuset or any of its affiliates. If there are any inaccuracies, I apologize and would appreciate corrections.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I do not own this hospital, nor am I affiliated with it or any of its affiliates.

Several hours later, Feliks is sprawled out on an emergency room bed with a concussion, an arm fractured in multiple places, and a superficial slash on his forehead. He’s in a deep state of sleep- but not a coma. Not yet.

“Tell me what happened to him,” Erszébet demands. She has been kept out of the loop for too long. She understands the policy, but Feliks didn’t even get the chance to tell her what got him before he legitimately passed out on the cot. The nurse stared at her kindly, patting her gently on the shoulder. She speaks in Swedish, and it almost takes her a second to translate. She is used to talking in English with her friends despite her residence in Stockholm.

“We think that he might have been hit by a car,” the nurse explains, whipping out a clipboard and thumbing through a few pages of printed out pages. “He has abrasions on the broken arm and his cheek. His arm will have to be set surgically.”

Erszébet can barely suppress her shock, but as she stops to process it, she realizes that it isn’t that unimaginable when she considers it fully. Feliks is easily distracted by loud noises, sudden movement, or even strange smells. The nurse discusses a few more things, about his concussion and head injury mostly, before returning to the room to check vitals or something.

“Is he okay?” Toris suddenly appears.

“Have you been here the whole time?” she asks, surprised.

He blinks in confusion. “Yes. I walked him to the hospital, it was quite close,” he answers quietly, running a hand through his hair.

“Oh, all right,” Erszébet replies. She’s rather surprised that she’s never met Toris before. It seems as if he and Feliks have many classes together- especially given their major and minor overlap. She takes a seat in a chair in the waiting room, and takes a sip of the tea she got earlier when the nurses asked her to leave the clinic room. Toris follows her absent-mindedly, sitting down neatly next to her, brushing off his jacket.

“You know Tino, don’t you?” Toris asks suddenly. 

Erszébet, surprised, replies, “Yeah, he used to be my roommate. Now he lives with his boyfriend in Solna.”

“We roomed together in boarding school,” he explains. “He is a very kind individual.” 

“You lived in London?” 

He nods. “That is where I learned English, I did not in Lithuania because my school required Lithuanian, French, Russian, and Polish instead of English.”

“That’s a lot of languages. Do you still speak all of them?” she asks curiously. Geez, private schools sure had high expectations. Four languages? Lithuanian, to the extent of her knowledge, abided under a heavy inflexion and case system. French isn’t a cake-walk either, and Russian and Polish both carry difficult case and conjugation under their arms, and difficult pronunciation. She’d heard Feliks speak Polish to his family and occasionally in other circumstances, and it sounded so throaty and accented. 

“Um, mostly. My French is a bit shaky sometimes,” he explains, and Erszébet resists the urge to test his French. She's minoring in it, and fluent enough to be mistaken for a native speaker, although her accent is more that of Quebec than France.

“Why did you come to Stockholm?” Erszébet asks.

He shrugs. “For college.” 

That doesn’t exactly answer the question she had in mind, but she supposes he did answer it in a literal sense. She slumps back in her chair and slides open her phone to check the second message. It’s from Gilbert, her on and off again boyfriend who’s currently off. _Ur stats teacher is coming to ljung vass get masters degree, fyi. Awk reunions ftw._ Erszébet’s mouth falls open in horror. She hadn’t seen Mr. Zwingli for several years, and the thought of encountering him once again after all this time is nothing short of frightening. Erszébet hadn’t, contrary to popular opinion, had a crush on him, during the physical school year. However, over the summer when he gave her some tutoring in trig (free of charge), things hadn’t exactly heated up, but perhaps clicked a few degrees above room temperature. It hadn’t led to anything, but Gilbert had teased her constantly and she had left New York City for Ljung Vass University in shame. He hadn’t spread rumors, he was immature, not cruel.

“Are you okay? You are pale,” Toris says softly, pulling out one of his earbuds with a concerned frown. 

“It’s nothing. I’m going to go check on Feliks. You can leave if you want, you don’t need to be here,” Erszébet offers. It was meant to be thoughtful, not rude, but it is clear that Toris takes umbrage. She hurries to correct herself, but before she can rectify anything, his lips curl into a small ‘o’.

“I am sorry for being such an inconvenience, Ms. Erszébet,” he says, and although his words are calm and controlled, it stings more than a slap to the face. As he stands, tugs his bag over his shoulder, and walks out lightly. He doesn’t storm, but Erszébet suspects that Toris is perhaps more assertive than he lets on to be.

“Ms. Héderváry? Your friend is awake temporarily and would like to speak with you,” a nurse says, approaching her, as her short heels click on the tile floor.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Erszébet replies, getting to her feet as quickly as possible as trotting after the nurse, who leads her back to the room at a brisk pace that she has no trouble keeping pace with.


	5. Chapter 5

Erszébet learns later that Feliks’ injuries actually constitute as a hit and run, which Feliks doesn’t seem to care about that to much extent. He has a heavy cast on most of his right arm, and stringent rules on when he can resume using a screen or when he can sleep and when he can be awake. It’s the concussion that seems to irk him the most- keeping him out of work, out of at least some of his classes, and out of the city.

“They said it was a drunk driver,” Feliks moans furiously at Erszébet while he takes his required rest on the sofa between any time period of hard thinking.

“When’d they tell you that?” she asks in response.

He shrugs one shoulder onto the arm of the sofa. “They said some police guy like arrested him at the scene after I got up and ran to the bus terminal.”

“You just ran to a bus terminal? Where is your logic?”

His eyebrows crinkle into his brow in confusion. “Explain.”

“So you’re telling me that your initial instinct was, ‘I have been seriously injured after being hit by a large vehicle, I am going to get up from the ground, run away from any possible paramedic help, and get on a bus that takes multiple stops’.”

“I was taking the bus to the hospital!” he protests.

“Yeah, when you were about to pass out and had part of your arm shattered!” They often spar like this, word against word. It doesn’t mean anything as long as both of them keep it from morphing to personal attacks rather than probing jibes.

“I got off the bus,” Feliks reminds her, leaning his head back boredly.

Erszébet chuckles. “Only after I told you to! And even when you got off the bus, you didn’t even call 112.”

“I asked for help,” he grumbles, growing disinterested and getting to his feet.

“You’re not supposed to get up,” Erszébet chides.

Feliks rolls his eyes, grabbing his jacket even though it’s not that chilly outside. “I have to go down to the police station. They want me to make an i.d. on the guy, ‘cause the guy that they arrested has a lot of points on his license and he’s pleading innocent or something. Not that I’m pressing charges or anything.”

“I’m coming!” Erszébet volunteers instantly. “You can’t go alone!” she says before he can’t even think of protesting.

“Erszi, that’s totally not necessary. All I have to say is ‘yeah, that’s the dude who side-swiped me’ and that’s that. They already took his blood alcohol level so if nothing else, he’s got a DUI on his hands.”

“Wow, this guy sounds like a douchebag,” she comments casually, tearing an annoying cuticle flap off her index finger.

“I don’t know, but I’m not super pleased about having to miss a class every day for like a month,” Feliks replies, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. “I have to miss my applied genetics class today ‘cause of rest. Can you believe it? I don’t need rest, rest makes me anxious! I have too much stuff to do!”

They plop down on the bus stop bench.

“Use a tutor,” Erszébet suggests flatly.

“I am a tutor,” he sniffs in a way that is not absence of self-satisfaction.

Erszébet replies, “Doesn’t mean you can’t use one.”

“Whatever,” he says dismissively.

Ten to fifteen minutes later, they arrive at the station. A slender elderly man who is kind but has a sort of mischievous fire in his eyes. He gives them their seats and asks what they are doing. “Here to report a crime or are ya turning yourselves in for somethin’?” he asks playfully as he notes a sentence or two on a clipboard.

“I’m here to i.d. someone,” Feliks relays, and Erszébet can hear the quiver in his voice. He’s a bit hesitant around strangers.

“Name?”

“Feliks.”

“Surname?”

He giggles a little at that. “You won’t know how to spell it anyway. The first letter is an ‘l’ with a slash through it.”

“Wait let me try. Luka-zie-wick?”

“Nice try, but no,” he replies, visibly relaxing into his seat.

“Mr.... How do you pronounce this?” a person who appears to be an attorney or a lawyer , who looks stiffer, probably stricter. He has a gruff voice, but kind eyes.

“That’s probably me,” Feliks says quietly, waving his hand at the attorney.

“Feliks?” 

He nods in response, raising his shoulders and then dropping them in a slump. He seems even smaller than he normally does, almost like a young child afraid of going to school. 

“If you see the man who drove the car, state is number in a clear voice. If you do not see him or are not sure, do not guess.”

“Number three,” he says the moment that all eight walk out. He knows from American crime shows that the people coordinating the lineup attempt to pick individuals that look very similar to the suspected perpetrator. However, despite their attempts, the hit and run dude stands out immediately. He’s got white hair and odd brown eyes that look bloody red in the light.

“Are you sure?” 

Feliks nods affirmatively. “It’s definitely number three. Can I leave now?”

“Yeah, we’re going to take him out front and take him to get his lisence permanently revoked, and then he’ll be most likely heading to jail for the DUI.”

“Thanks for the info, but I’m not coming along or testifying or whatever you want me to do.”

“We weren’t asking you, you’re free to leave.” 

He winces as he turns. Feliks is not sure what on earth has happened to his leg in the course of being hit by that awful car, but all of the tendons feel tighter around his joints. It becomes exceedingly painful with each day. He figures he should probably see a doctor at some point. He returns to the waiting room, and Erszi stands just as a police officer is taking the hit and run driver, arms handcuffed behind his back. She pretends not to recognize him for a moment, but he gives her an easy grin, like he isn’t being currently taken into custody. 

“Hey, Erszi, it’s been a while, huh?” he tells her as he gets taken by her. 

“Oh my god, you know him?” Erszébet doesn’t reply immediately, and before she can talk, realization dawns on his face. “That’s Gilbert, isn’t it?”

Erszébet is speechless. Gilbert has never been particularly obedient or straitlaced, and he’s been a heavy drinker for a very long time, but he has never done something this outlandish. All this time, she has been picturing Feliks’ hit and run assaulter as a heinous individual who probably hated children and life and college students, because it was easier to think that way. Gilbert had run over Feliks, drunk. Despite how Feliks acted like it didn’t bother him much, it bothered Erszébet. A lot. Especially now that her (now definitely ex and not just on a break) boyfriend had gotten himself intoxicated, probably at some stupid bar, and hit her bestfriend in a car and could have killed him.

“Hello? You ready to leave?” Feliks asks. 

She doesn’t know how to answer that. Honestly speaking, Erszébet would love to run after Gilbert and the cop and punch her ex-boyfriend in the face. But instead she replies, “Yeah, I guess so.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter portrays Gilbert in a rather negative light, but I assure you that background will be filled in later. Also, I have never been arrested or being taken into police custody anywhere, let alone in Sweden. All of this stuff comes from Law and Order SVU, so it could be outdated or inaccurate or both.


	6. Chapter 6

Erszébet has the next day off for långfredagen [Good Friday]. She is sort of Roman Catholic, and she plans to attend mass with Feliks. He goes every Sunday. She usually spends her Sundays catching up homework she should have done earlier, but she says her prayers, keeps a cross around her neck, and visits the nearby cathedral whenever she has the time. It’s only a four minute subway ride anyhow.

Suddenly the door opens, and an old friend returns. It’s Roderich, another ex-roommate. They lived together for the summer after senior year when they were both young, when she thought she could be an architect and when he thought he could be a professional musician.

“I am here to tell you that Gilbert has been released,” Roderich informs her, all formal and acting as though they have just met. This treatment leaves a bitter taste in Erszébet’s mouth. It’s as if he is ignoring the times that they had bought cheap wine and cooked dinner and played instruments and gone to festivals and slept together. It might not have worked out, but Erszébet does not want to be treated like a stranger. So she says through her teeth, “And how exactly did that come to happen?”

“I abide under the impression that he has a younger brother in a high position of the law office. This brother, through his connexions, was able to take the jail time off the table. He still had his license revoked though. I believe that Ludwig Beilschmidt, that is his brother’s name, has a strong sense of justice despite his familial bonds with Gilbert.”

“Well, thanks, but what exactly are you doing here? You could have just called,” she says, searching for a reaction. What reaction, she is not exactly sure. 

“If you mind, I will leave.”

“I don’t mind. Take a seat, you still like tea, right?”

He takes a seat, looking as prim and proper. He stirs honey into the tea thoughtfully with a delicate spoon. Erszébet hands him a packet of artificial sweetener, which he glances at disdainfully before tearing it open and tipping its contents dubiously into his tea.

“So,” Erszébet says, trying to phrase her words carefully. Roderich doesn’t offend easily despite his tendency to be a bit snobbish. But after her last incident with Toris in the waiting room, she attempts to tread lightly. “Would you please explain to me why you came over? It’s a welcome visit, but we haven’t spoken in half a year. You could have come over any time, why now?”

He sighs lightly, breath fluttering. “I heard about your roommate being hit by a car Gilbert was driving. I also heard from an acquaintance that you’re falling behind on your academics. Are you feeling well? Is your family bothering you?”

Erszébet smiles faintly. “I’m doing okay, just kind of tired,” she replies. “And how are you?”

He seems a bit surprised by the question. “I suppose I’m well. A bit isolated, possibly. I recently acquired a position playing in a professional orchestra, additionally I teach violin and piano to underprivileged children.”

“That’s good. Seeing anyone?”

Blushing furiously, he begins to retort in a serious tone, but he stops short and relaxes. Perhaps he realizes that there is no point to acting stiff around her. “No, but I did have relations the previous night while slightly intoxicated.”

“No one says ‘relations’ anymore in that context, dear,” she reminds him, signaling for him to continue as she takes a tiny sip of scalding tea.

“Whichever,” he waves it away.

She chuckles pleasantly. “Who was it?” she asks, waggling her eyebrows suggestively. Their relationship had long since ended, but she still cares for him in a familiar sense, and she wants him to be happy.

“I’m not sure if I should disclose that.”

“Why not?” she asks, immediately suspicious.

Roderich twists his mouth uncomfortably, before evidently deciding to go ahead and tell her. He was never able to keep very much from her. “His name is Vash.”

“Surname?”

“You have far too high expectations from me. It was one night, I failed to ask for identification and green card status,” he said, rolling his eyes.

Erszébet giggles at the joke, although she’s actually concerned. Mr. Zwingli’s first name, if she remembers correctly, is Vash. And according to a brief text from Gilbert earlier in the week, Mr. Zwingli is back in town, attending the very same university that she does, to attain a master's degree.

“Was he hot?” she teases playfully, although she is actually digging for information, hoping to be discrete.

Roderich is none the wiser to her questions. He brushes his hair back absent-mindedly, as if trying to discover an appropriate way to answer her question. “Objectively yes. His eyes were quite attractive, a very nice shade of green.”

“Ah,” Erszébet replies. “You always go for the green eyes, don’t you?” she jibes, opening her eyes widely in a melodramatic way, batting her eyelashes sillily. 

“Not necessarily,” he says vaguely, shifting one shoulder up against the back of the chair. A watch alarm suddenly buzzes on Roderich’s wrist. 

“I’m afraid I have a prior engagement at a doctor’s office,” he explains getting up and taking his coat off the hook by the door.

“It was nice talking to you, Roderich. Stop by whenever,” Erszébet says to him, although curiosity is gnawing at her gut about Roderich's rendezvous- especially concerning the person it was with.

“Thank you for having me. Always a pleasure,” he replies earnestly, taking his leave and shutting the door quietly behind him.


	7. Chapter 7

Erszébet ties up her hair and curls the ends with an ancient curling iron. “We’re leaving in five minutes, Erszi,” Feliks alerts her from the foyer. He’s already ready, somehow. He usually takes much longer than her. He’s too finicky for his own good. She glances at her reflection in the mirror, applying a bit of lip gloss, a tasteful shade of peach that’s very close in color to her own lips.

“Okay, I’m ready,” she calls, trotting to the foyer and grabbing her clutch that has a Swiss army knife, a wallet with a bit of emergency cash, and a mini can of pepper spray. Feliks says she’s paranoid, but she’s not the one who got caught in a holdup at a grocery store a month ago and nearly got killed for running his mouth.

“Good, ‘cause we’re taking the subway. Keep your hand on your purse, I totally almost got robbed on the way home from something.”

Sometimes she wonders if he is intentionally vague. “You’re just inherently unlikely.” “Some may call it that,” he replies, equally not specific.

Erszébet rolls her eyes at him as he opens the door and practically skips out of it. The subway is precisely four minutes, Feliks has it down like clockwork, but he always banks for extra time. If anything, he’s the paranoid one.

“Calm down, people are going to look at us funny,” Erszébet whispers into his ear. She will never understand where he gets all of his ridiculous energy from.

“I am calm,” he protests as he grabs one of the grips as the bus jolts slightly.

“You’re never calm. Except when you’re sleeping,” she observes, before considering that and adding, “Actually, scratch that. You kick like you’re trying out to be a donkey.”

“I do not. Besides, I’ve only bedded with you once during that hurricane. You totally don’t have enough evidence to make a fair conclusion. As a stats major, you should know that,” he chides, feigning indignation.

“Stop using my major against me,” she whines in response, digging into her purse.

“No texting, we’re here,” he orders as the metro train pulls to a sudden stop. The doors fly open, and Erszébet loses Feliks almost instantly in the crowd of people trying to get in and the crowd of people trying to get out. He’s fairly short- about threeish inches taller than her and she’s only 160 cm [5’3”] and he has a talent for weaving around people, whereas she does not. A few moments later, they are reunited on the deck, and they quickly take the stairs up to the street. The cathedral, St. Erics, looked relatively modest (in terms of cathedrals) from the outside, but the ceiling was sudden. It nearly took her breath away every time she walked inside, and the arches were positively stunning. The color scheme was earthy in nature, and could extricate a deep feeling of religious reverie even from a ‘sort of observant’ person like her.

“Feliks, where do you want to sit?”

“The middle I guess,” he whispers seriously.

She shrugs. “Okay, sounds good to me.”

“Will you please talk quieter?” he requests, and Erszébet knows not to laugh it off. If Feliks takes anything seriously, it would be religion.

“Sure, okay,” she replies as they take their seats. There’s still probably fifteen or so minutes before the mass starts. Feliks is kneeling on the kneeler like a few of the other early arrivals, eyes decidedly closed and hands folded together. Erszébet is so distracted that she cannot even bring herself to put her knees on the wood kneeler and bow down in front of God with all of her baggage. She does not feel as though she deserves such a conversation. So her eyes wander around the church, appreciating the beauty of the cathedral. She notices, out of the corner of her eyes, a familiar face among the mostly elderly people. He has distinctive facial features, gentle and very delicate, and he is easy to spot among the rest. Erszébet makes eye contact with Toris Laurinaitis, and for one terrible second, he stares back. Toris looks away pointedly, and takes his seat on the other side of the pews, near the back. Erszébet is not quite sure why she is so surprised to see him. Part of her family lives in Lithuania for business, and she is aware that much of Lithuania's population is Catholic. Then she sees Feliciano's older brother, Lovino Vargas, walk in, and she forces herself to look down at her shoes, scuffed and black, her only nice shoes and her go-to for any sort of formal event. They’re a bit too large, and the sides are stained with grass and creek water from one too many adventures outside. Finally, the music begins, and those who are kneeling return into their seats. 

The service is not that long, since it is not a regular service or a large holiday, and approximately forty-five minutes later, she is walking out of the church with Feliks at her side. He is leaning heavily on one leg now, she notices.

“Have you been limping this whole time?” Erszébet inquires in a concerned, parent-like tone.

He shrugs. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“What is your issue with going to a doctor? Don’t you want to go into medicine?” she asks exasperatedly, having trouble believing that a guy so interested in pre-med would be so incapable of listening to his own pains.

“I thought it would get better,” he admits, shifting onto his better leg.

“Sometimes I think you’re an idiot. We’re going to a doctor,” she orders, not giving him a chance to argue.

But he shakes his head. “I don’t have enough money for a doctor. What if it’s something really bad and they make me pay for something I can’t afford?”

“Medical clinic, then.”

He nods indifferently. “If you insist.”

She takes her straight to the college-run medical clinic. It’s run by students, med students who are in their third or fourth year who technically aren’t doctors but have enough knowledge to take care of most injuries that people walk in with. It’s free of charge to students of the university, but they also provide services to children without suitable families and people with no homes. Some well-off charities and philanthropists fund its charity work. The almost-doctor who sees them is a pretty young woman, with a floral dress and long black hair fishtailed into a braid.

“Hello, my name is Xiao Mei. What are your names?”

“My name is Feliks and this is Erszébet.”

She smiles and nods, making a quick notation. “So what seems to be the problem today?”

“My friend here was recently hit by a car. He was hospitalized for other conditions, but now he has bad leg pain,” she explains before Feliks can speak for himself. She is afraid that he will downplay it too much and he won’t get the care that he needs. The nurse indicates for him to roll up his pant leg, which he does, rather hesitantly.

“Wow, okay,” she whispers quietly, feeling the area around his knee. “You have dislocated your knee, and it’s been improperly re-set. Did you attempt to do it yourself?”

He shrugs. “Maybe. I didn’t know what it was. It seemed kind of out of alignment so I tried to pop it back in. I couldn’t tell if it like worked or anything.”

Xiao-Mei looks visibly shocked, but the poor girl attempts to look collected. “All right, well in the future why don’t you not do that anymore. A dislocated knee is a serious injury, and you need to go to a doctor or even the ER.”

“Okay, got it,” he says nonchalantly.

Erszébet resists the urge to roll her eyes out of concern, but she casts a significant glance at the almost-doctor, who smiles affably at her, a playful smile in her eyes. Xiao-Mei has Feliks lay on the table, and with well-practiced hands, she sets the knee. He chokes back a sob, squeezing his hands together with a deathgrip as tears water just below his bottom eyelashes. “I will give you a brace, but you should get a check-up soon to check for nerve damage or vein damage. Now I will check your vitals. Please, Ms. Erszébet, make sure he gets proper medical care.”

“I will, don’t worry,” she assures her. Xiao-Mei gives Feliks crutches, which he picks up with a childish grin on his face. They leave the medical clinic as fast as Feliks can use the crutches, which is pretty slow since he’d never broken a leg bone before.

“This is hard,” Feliks complains, as they get back onto the sidewalk. They’re not too far from their apartment.

“This is what happens when you don’t tell doctors what’s wrong with you,” Erszébet says to him, hoping to drill it through his head at some point.

“I’ll remember next time,” he promises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah. In case you haven't noticed, I don't own any cathedrals (nor am I affiliated), and definitely not any in Sweden. Also, if you realized that Xiao-Mei is Taiwan, you get a cookie.


	8. Chapter 8

Erszébet is alone. Feliks is at Holy Saturday mass, which she was unable to attend due to forgetfulness. Tino is presumably in Solna with his boyfriend Berwald, because he isn’t answering his cell. She doesn’t have many more close friends in the city, only acquaintances. She likes Feliciano, with the nice smile and the contagious laughter, well enough, but he always has scary or nasty men hovering over him, like his brother Lovino or his maybe boyfriend Ludwig Beilschmidt. Feliks will not be out of mass for a while, and he’s usually late anyway. He’s still on crutches for the dislocated knee, but the concussion had apparently healed enough for him to return to all of his classes as long as he lays down for at least forty minutes a day without reading material or a screen (according to the doctor at the e.r., it wasn't a very bad concussion because his arm took most of the impact). That arm is obviously still casted in heavy plaster, and it’s very difficult for him to use the crutches with it on. Erszébet slouches on the couch, pulling her sweatpant clad legs up to her chest. Feliks is so unreceptive to physical pain that he barely notices it, yet put him in an emotionally painful situation, and he will break down faster than a wall made of sand.

_hey Erszi. wwhazup?_ The text inquires, and Erszi knows that there is only one person who would ever text her with such awful spelling. When she doesn’t reply, Gilbert adds, out _with your boyfriend?_

_Which one?_ she replies spitefully, typing furiously. If she had anything better to do, she would just ignore it.

_touchy._

_so how exactly did your little brother manage to get jail off the table?_

She can almost see Gilbert’s smirk fade. _he’s got connexions or somethin._

_lucky for you. feliks told me that you would have had to spend at least a year in jail otherwise._

_shut up._

_i’m not the one who texted you_ , she reminds him, and he doesn’t reply.

“I’m back, Erszi!” Feliks exclaims from the foyer, leaning his crutches against the wall and walking with a slight limp over to the kitchen. “Did you eat lunch?” he asks her.

“Yeah, and you really shouldn’t be cooking with a cast. Why don’t you sit down?” she tells him.

“I have to go to class, actually,” he says.

“Me too,” she says. “What building?”

He shrugs. “Mathematics, why do you ask?”

“Because I’m going to the mathematics building too. Let’s walk,” she says, and Feliks ignores his crutches by the door and follows her out the door. 

“So who’s hosting the Easter dinner? Tino, right?” Erszébet confirms. Every year since they graduated from high school, they’ve taken turns hosting Easter and Boxing Day dinners to catch up- since they don’t always see each other. Attendees vary slightly by year depending on who’s dating who and who’s where, but it’s usually includes herself, Feliks, Tino, Roderich, and Gilbert, and any significant others or good friends at that time.

“Yup,” Feliks says. “I hope he doesn’t make that gross pudding stuff again.”

“I will agree that the texture is a bit unusual. Although it tastes fine, if you put enough cream and sugar on it,” Erszébet says. Tino is a pretty good cook, but he has a habit of making sort of odd things for them to eat. Erszébet is pretty sure that some of them aren’t even Finnish, just weird in general.

“Whatever,” Feliks replies as he opens the door on the side of the building he’s entering and slips inside. “See ya, Erszi!” Almost right after the door closes, it opens again with an stiff push. She, for a moment, almost thinks Feliks is turning back, having forgotten something. Mr. Zwingli and Feliks share an uncanny similarity, with almost-shoulder length blond hair and green eyes. The only real differences are Feliks’ delicate features and angular-shaped eyes, and Mr. Zwingli’s bangs. Mr. Zwingli holds a mathematics and a European history textbook, glasses perched on the bridge of his nose with thick, dark frames. 

“Ms. Erszébet,” Mr. Zwingli says, a stunned half-awake expression plastered on his face.

“Hello,” she greets him awkwardly. She is not sure what to say, an experience that does not scourge her often.

“How are your studies going?”

She shrugs. “I’m majoring in statistics, and minoring in French.”

“Ah, a respectable lineup,” he says, if not a bit gruffly, stepping out of the doorway to allow a student to pass through it. Erszébet finds herself wanting to blush, and the collar that rubs on the back of her neck is becoming decidedly uncomfortable. She hasn’t felt like that since she was nine years old, a blushing schoolgirl or something pathetic.

“So, what are you planning to get your master’s degree in?” she inquires, trying to appear conversational.

“How did you know I was after a M.Sc?” he asks. It’s not a particularly suspicious tone, but Erszébet’s neck prickles with embarrassment.

“Gilbert texted me,” she says with a sigh.

“I never really liked him,” he comments vaguely, leaning against the wall of the mathematics building casually. “Are you two still seeing each other?”

“No,” she says quickly.

He raises his eyebrows. “Oh? What about that fellow, the piano player?” he gestures slightly with his right hand.

“Roderich Edelstein, and no we broke up a while ago. But you know him, don’t you?” Erszébet realizes that her question is incriminating the moment that the words fall out her mouth. She consoles herself by realizing that she could have said something much worse, like, But you slept with him, didn’t you?.

Mr. Zwingli visibly goes rigid. “He wasn’t my student in secondary school, he didn’t take any advanced mathematics.”

Erszébet decides to drop it. Besides, her presence is required at Calculus 3. “Sorry, Mr. Zwingli, but I have to go to a class.”

“It was nice talking to you, Erszébet. See you around,” he says, nodding his head and taking his leave. Erszébet is shocked. He’s always called her Ms. Erszébet or Ms. Héderváry, never by her first name. She wonders vaguely if it is acceptable for her to call him by his first name.

“Hey Matthew,” she whispers as she slips into a seat next to him. She’s not exactly late, but she’s not exactly on time either. He looks a little surprised. Perhaps because honestly, Erszébet has never made an effort to speak to him in her life.

“Good afternoon,” he squeaks in response, opening his notebook as the teacher begins writing problems on the chalkboard. Professor Liner has a strict schedule for normal, non-test days. First, review problems utilizing the concepts and skills covered in the last class lesson. Then comes a short, one question quiz, and then a lecture ensues. Homework is always assigned, but never mandatory.

“So,” Erszébet drawls in a long syllable to Matthew, “What’s your major?” But the actual question is, ‘if you’re not majoring in a math, why on earth are you killing yourself by taking calc 3?’.

“Public health, minor in nutrition,” he replies quietly.

“That’s interesting,” she says, although in fact she has very little idea what public health constitutes. She checks her watch. After Calculus 3, she has Advanced French Literary Analysis and then an evening class in Krav Maga before changing into nice clothes and heading to Tino’s apartment in Solna for Easter dinner. Only a few more hours, she tells herself as she works on a parametric surfaces problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I live in Finalnd, so don't take what it's in here about mämmi is not meant to be offensive. I believe that it's is a taste you have to acquire, so it's possible Feliks and Erszi wouldn't find it very tasty. Also, no way am I in Calculus 3, so any corrections would be appreciated.


	9. Chapter 9

Erszébet is wearing a medium-length black dress with cap sleeves and an a-line waist. She applies on a small amount of make-up with a steady hand, glancing at her wristwatch. She doesn't mind admitting that she wears makeup sometimes because Erszi wears lip gloss and mascara for herself, because she likes to, not to impress anyone. Feliks had classes for most of the day, and when he did come home she was at French literature, so they missed each other by just a hair of time. He’s probably on the subway as she thinks, heading to Solna- which is in Stockholm but across a small area of islands and water. Erszébet grabs her purse, a trusty old thing, and sets out for the metro.

She has to take the metro for part of the way and then walk intermittently and take various bus routes. It’s circuitous, because she hasn’t gotten around to applying for a driving permit yet (she never needed one in New York City), so it takes about 25 minutes. A driver could probably get there in fifteen or sixteen, if they knew the good roads. So 25 minutes later, she is standing on the step of Tino’s home- a house tinier than hers and Feliks’, if that is even possible. It’s neat, though, and there are always flowers in the small pot by the welcome mat. Hers and Feliks’ died a few seasons ago- they never made an attempt to replace them.

Only a moment passed between her ringing the doorbell, and the door flying open exuberantly. “Erszi!” Tino exclaims. “Thanks so much for coming!” he says with a smile, although Erszébet cannot think of any reason besides sickness or death where she would miss one of these get-togethers. They hold so many memories for her, and despite how sometimes they fight and sometimes they fall out of touch, these bi-annual meetings serve as a gentle rekindling that fills Erszi with warm feelings of friendship. She can barely bring herself to snap at Feliks for being ridiculous for weeks after them.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she replies truthfully, hanging her light jacket on the hook by the door. Feliks waves to her. He’s sitting on the side of a couch arm, swinging his good leg. Paper daffodils hang from the mantel, pretty and cut out of paper. The people currently in the great room (which is most of the apartment) not including herself are Tino, Berwald, Feliks, and Roderich, but Gilbert is always late.

“Do you need any help finishing the cooking?” Erszi asks.

Tino shakes his head cheerfully. “We got it done, but if you would help me set-”

“Already done,” Berwald murmurs, brushing past him as he sets a small stack of pans in the sink.

Tino smiles, picking up two platters and heading over to the table. Erszi looks over at the platters- it looks like lamb maybe, with various vegetables, an egg dish, and a pastry of sorts.

Feliks hops off the couch despite his injured knee and joins them near the table.

“Wow, Tino,” Erszébet exclaims. “Nice job with everything. What are these?” she inquires, indicating to the pastry thing.

“They’re Karelian dumplings,” Tino replies brightly. “Supposedly, you put the egg and some butter inside the pocket.”

“That’s- interesting,” Feliks says hesitantly, eying the pastry suspiciously.

Erszébet takes a cut of the lamb as the plates are circled around the table. There is still empty spaces left at the opposite head of the table, for extra guests. She has brought friends and boyfriends before, but this time she decided against it. Mostly because she didn’t have a specific person that she felt comfortable asking to come along. During the first dinner, it had just been herself, Feliks, Tino, and Roderich. The guest list expanded later to include Gilbert and Berwald, since he and Tino had been together for a long while. “So Tino, how did that volunteer garden bully work out?” Erszébet asks him.

He shrugs. “He hit me with a bag of mulch while we were unloading, and I fell off the pickup truck. It kind of hurt,” he relays. Berwald visibly stiffens, tightening his grip on his fork, but he doesn’t say anything about that.

“Did you confront him?” Feliks asks curiously, dubiously cutting the dumpling open with a fork and spooning egg onto it.

“I told him he was being mean, and then he said some mean stuff and I sort of shoved him.”

Feliks’ eyes widened. “Really?”

“Yes,” Tino says. “I feel kind of bad about it.”

“Don’t feel bad,” Berwald replies quietly, so quietly that Erszébet is barely sure that she even heard it.

“Well,” Roderich says with finality, trying to change the subject. “These dumplings are quite delicious, Tino,” he says, poking at them gently with his fork as he chews a neat portion of it.

“Thanks,” he replies happily. “I thought I’d try something different this time.”

“Don’t you always try something different?” Erszébet reminds him.

He considers that, tilting his head to the side. “I suppose. With cooking, anyway.”

Feliks giggles at that. Erszébet finishes her lamb quickly, it’s cooked with tasty spices and browned nicely. She wonders, and not vaguely, if Gilbert plans on showing up. Normally, he’s not more than ten minutes late, and they’re almost halfway through dinner. Now, they always have a bit of festivities afterwards, usually with alcohol, so the party isn’t over yet. It’s never gotten too crazy. The weirdest thing that has ever occurred was a brief kitchen fire that Tino put out with an extinguisher.

“Ellliizzzaaa,” Feliks says in a whine, clearly having been trying to get her attention, with snapping his fingers and repeating her name over and over. “I saw Mr. Zwingli leaving math HQ after I was walking in. Did you two talk?”

“Yeah, for a bit.”

Feliks raises an eyebrow, something he's been quite skilled in since she first met him several years ago. “You don’t have any details for me? What kind of friend are you?”

She chuckles at him. “I hate to be the one to break the news, but you are not the only one allowed to be vague,” she shoots playfully at him, because God forbid she ever get caught without a good comeback around Feliks.

“I’m not vague,” he says with a pout.

It’s Tino’s turn to laugh. “You’re the most unspecific person I’ve ever met in my entire life.”

“That’s totally not true! I tell you guys lots of things!” 

“Lots of irrelevant things,” Roderich adds.

Feliks rolls his eyes.

“For instance, let’s consider the fact that-”

“Let’s not even go into whatever you think you’re going into,” Feliks interrupts, brushing hair back from his face huffily.

“I agree,” Roderich adds. “I have no interest.”

Erszébet serves another portion of sweet boiled carrots. They’re quite tasty and complement everything nicely in the meal. “Roderich, I saw you in the newspaper.”

He raises his eyebrows. “I was not aware that I had done anything newsworthy,” he relays as he cuts a steamed potato into cubes.

Tino jumps in with, “Yeah, I saw that. Something about teaching kids how to play instruments, right?”

He nods. “To underprivileged children, yes. Piano and violin,” he explains. 

“That’s cool!” Feliks exclaims. “How many kids?”

Roderich shrugs. “In total, twelve. I’ve been trying to find more people to help so I can help more. It will offer a good resume builder for me.”

“I can help,” Feliks offers with a shrug.

“Do you actually play an instrument?”

“Piano, duh,” he replies. Roderich seems surprised, setting down his fork as he finished his food. Erszébet, even if she hadn’t known already, wouldn’t have been surprised. His family’s a bit overbearing, and both him and his three siblings learned piano from the moment they had the fine motor skills capable of clicking out a few keys.

“Hm. I suppose you could be helpful,” Roderich muses. 

“Of course I can be helpful,” Feliks sniffs indignantly.

Tino smiles. “You guys are funny,” he says with a laugh, getting up from his seat and going over to the refrigerator and pulling out a plate of pudding. Feliks winces comically, and Erszébet chuckles. 

“I’ll be honest when I say, I thought Gilbert was going to show,” Tino admits casually, dropping the plate down on the table. “He doesn’t usually miss these dinners.”

“Well, he did have a close call with the Stockholm police and a ticket to prison,” Roderich reminds him. “He is most likely embarrassed.”

Erszébet snorts. “Gilbert? Embarrassed? You must be dreaming,” she tells him as Tino slides the plate forward so everyone can take some. Feliks looks away, and Erszébet elbows him sharply in the side. He rolls his eyes and takes a small serving, wincing as he takes a bite. Tino probably notices but chooses not to react negatively. Erszébet is struck with an overwhelming feeling of family . They’ve all known each other for various amounts of time, some know people better than others, and each of them brings an interesting story and conversation to the table. Different lives, different connexions, different cultures, and different ways of going about things. She decides right at that table, swallowing a slightly gross pudding and trying to keep a straight face, that she will never forget any of them.


	10. Chapter 10

Erszébet finishes a paper with a cup of tea and a book she is itching to read taunting her. She isn’t much of a reader in the sense that she devours books like a second oxygen, like Roderich is, but she enjoys the series and the final chapter is finally out. She yearns to learn how the plot will be tied together, how the main characters (Danny and Elishya) will resolve their underlying sexual tension, and why Anna’s mother is so secretive. But she has told herself that she will finish this paper- in French nonetheless, on the importance of _Les Fleurs du Mal_ in the the modernist movement, which isn’t an inherently difficult prompt, but it’s supposed to be twelve pages long. Not double-spaced.

“Hey Erszi, I’m going out! I’ll be back in an hour,” Feliks shouts, and she hears the jingling of a keychain and then the outer door shuts, the lock clicking closed. Erszébet sighs at her friend even though he’s probably halfway to the subway stop by now and completes her eleventh page. Erszébet has always hated conclusions. She always feels like she’s just reiterating herself. Half an hour later, she prints out the concluded paper and scans it to her French teacher, Professeur Couture.

“Now that’s done,” she murmurs to herself, washing out her teacup and placing it in the dishwasher. She picks up the book, fingering the crisp pages. It was from the library, but she had been the second person to check it out so it was still in good condition.

“Hello, Erszébet,” Roderich says, opening the door after knocking twice and a short pause.

“Um, hi,” she replies. She is not used to people just coming into her apartment without a specific reason. “What brings you here?”

He tilts his head to the side, considering. “I was wondering if you would come to dinner with me.” Erszébet, taken aback, has to force her mouth closed so it doesn’t fall open. She blinks a few times, before returning to her senses.

“Are you asking me out?” she inquires.

He nods. “Yes.”

“Um, okay,” she says in response. Her head is buzzing with confusion. She doesn’t know how to react; Roderich has never been this blunt before with her, and they haven’t dated since high school. She’s a college junior now, and after all this time, why now?

“Do you have an answer?”

“Sure,” she replies hastily. It’s just one date, she tells herself. If it doesn’t work out, she can just explain her feelings (or lack thereof) and everything will go back to normal.

“I’ll pick you up at eight,” he relays, and she nods. He leaves quickly, smiling delicately and closing the door in a gentle manner- she barely hears it. Erszébet opens her book tiredly, rubbing at her eyelids, which are encrusted with sleep from a long night studying for a test that the professor didn’t even up administrating. Something inside her snaps. Frustration is threatening to burst out of her at the seams- she is normally patient with bad days, but this has been different. Feliks has been largely ignoring her the past week for favor of spending all day ‘out’, and Tino is busy on an environmental science field lab to test water samples in various places around Stockholm. Gilbert has not contacted her since those last text messages, and she’s been swamped with homework and studying. Not only is she under a great amount of duress, but she has no one to talk to, no one to relate to. Roderich has been her only significant human interaction for an entire week. Yesterday she went to a pub just hoping someone would talk to her. No one did. She’s practically been kept in isolation for a week, and it’s tearing at her insides. She is an extrovert, she thrives off of human interaction, however boring or uninteresting. “Ugh!” she screams in frustration, throwing the book on the floor and digging her phone out of her pocket. She dials Feliks’ number, because she is the only person she can really blame at this point. He is the one who has been ignoring her when she has done nothing but put up with his antics and be a good friend. He finally picks up after the ringing has almost ceased. “Yeah, Erszi? Everything okay?”

“Where are you?” she interrogates him, struggling to keep her voice calm.

There is a hesitant pause. “I can leave if you need something.”

Erszébet clenches her teeth, tensing her jaw. “Well, that’s great, but I would really like to know where you actually are.”

“I’m working on a lab,” he replies, too quickly. He was never that good at lying, just at avoiding questions. The truth always comes out, but for once, she isn’t interested in waiting around.

“That’s a lie,” she breathes into the phone, hanging up furiously. She takes a big breath, making her lungs fill to bursting with air. The air calms her temper, and she drops the phone on the counter, dropping to the floor and leaning against one of the cabinets. She thumbs the book that sat on the tile and takes another deep breath. Erszébet has a horrible temper, vindictive and scathing, but it only lasts a few minutes and honestly speaking, it’s been years since she’s gotten this angry at anyone. She doesn’t regret her words in a traditional sense, but she does wish she could have phrased them better, over dinner and settled the problem in a more appropriate way. The door flies against the wall, and Feliks stands in the doorway, storming in and eyes furious.

“What the hell was that about?” Feliks asks, dropping his bag on the ground. 

Erszébet winces. He hardly ever curses. She is no longer angry, and she gets to her feet calmly. “I’m sorry for how I said that, I’m a bit overwhelmed at the moment.”

“Whatever! You didn’t have to yell at me like that!” he retorts. 

Erszébet sighs. “I apologized. But regardless of the fact that I was kind of aggressive in my methods, we do need to talk about your behavior.”

“I was just hit by a car! Driven by your ex-boyfriend!” Erszébet recoils as if she were just slapped, because it hurts more. All this time, he has not once played the victim card. He’s taken it rather well thus far, why is he being so cruel now? But deep down, she knows the answer. He is trying to get to her, trying to make her feel bad, because he feels bad. 

“Don’t play the victim,” she tells him. “And he’s not my boyfriend,” she adds. 

Feliks rolls his eyes. “I’m not playing the victim! I am the victim! You’re the one who has a supportive family who calls you every week and always had suitors chasing after you. Your professors and friends all love you and you have awesome hair and pretty eyes and-” It’s clear that he’s just ranting now, tacking one thing after another to release stress. 

She cuts Feliks off before he can say anything else. “Please stop. I understand that you’re upset, but you’re doing yourself no good by yelling.”

“Yes I am,” he whispers, and it’s clear that he’s only one shift away from cracking into fragments.

“No, you’re not,” she tells him quietly, and he fragments onto the floor. Literally, he drops onto the floor and looks down at his feet, bringing his knees up to his chest. He looks like a child, a scared little kid. He doesn’t make eye contact as she sits down and scoots forward on the ground.

“Why don’t you go to bed?” she suggests lightly. 

“Are you still mad at me?” he asks, eyes not wavering from the tile.

She sighs. “No, but we do need to talk at some point and sort this out. Get a good night’s sleep and we’ll deal with it in the morning.”

“Thanks,” he mumbles and gets to his feet. He walks to his room, and shuts the door. Erszébet takes a deep breath, and mentally swipes up the intact egg shells that she just walked all over. As soon as she sees that the light flicks dark from the cracks between the door and the frame, she hurries into her room, changes into a dark purple dress with a scoop neck and a twirly skirt. She applies minor makeup to cover a small scar and a shimmery gloss to her lips, and with a twirl of her skirt and a grab of her purse, leaves the apartment, careful not to make a sound. Erszébet smiles to herself, goes down a small flight of stairs to the sidewalk, and leans against the brick wall of the building. Roderich, out of every man who she has ever gone out with, is the least likely of them all to stand up someone on a date. 

“Good evening, Erszébet,” Roderich says, stepping out of his rather old but very clean Volvo.

“Hello!” she exclaims brightly. He takes her arm, ever the gentleman, and opens the car door for her.

“How are you?” he asks her.

She tilts her head back and forth. “Feliks and I are fighting.” Normally, Erszébet wasn’t much of a gossip, but she needed an outlet and Roderich was always kind to her and engaged in whatever conversation she was interested in.

“Ah I see, what happened?” he inquires, not taking his eyes off the road. Roderich is a very safe and vigilant driver.

“He has been very secretive lately, he’s been leaving early and coming home lately.”

“Feliks has always been covert, hasn’t he?” Roderich confirms.

“Yeah, but he goes through time periods where it gets much worse.”

“But the secret always gets out,” Roderich tuts in response. “What was it last time, again?”

Erszébet pinches the bridge of her nose, trying to call back the memory. “I think he was hiding the fact that his sister had gotten arrested? Maybe? That might have been a different time.”

“How did she come into police custody?” Roderich asks.

“DUI, if I remember correctly. She merged onto traffic going a different direction and almost killed some guy,” she replies, attempting to recall more details but coming up blank.

“Unfortunate,” he responds.

“I’m sorry for bringing you down with my problems, how are you?” she says, remembering her manners, which she often neglects.

“Don’t worry about it, I’m well,” Roderich replies as he pulls into a parallel parking spot a half a city block from a Basque restaurant, a tidy dinner place apparently with delicious fish, various stews, and pretty tarts and pastries. Erszébet has never been there, but she knows that Tino has with Berwald, and he said it was quite good.

“Reservation for two,” Roderich relays to the waiter standing by the door in front of a small table.

“Your last name?” the waiter asks.

Roderich replies, “Edelstein.”

“Ah, yes, come right this way,” the waiter replies, closing his book boredly, and walking a few steps towards an empty table. He indicates the chairs, and drops menus on the table. Erszébet takes her seat and glances at the menu.

“May I interest you in any drinks?” the waiter asks them, clearly ogling her. Roderich shoots him a momentary glare, so quick that Erszébet is barely sure that she saw it.

“Just water is fine,” Roderich replies quickly.

“Do you have iced tea?” Erszébet requests.

The waiter’s leer intensified, circling in on her chest. Erszébet, despite the fact that her dress is not immodest, begins to feel self-conscious, highly unusual for her. She wishes she had brought a cardigan.

“Yeah, sure, sweetheart,” the waiter says, tearing his gaze away for only a moment to scribble down a note before turning on his heel and returning to the desk at the front. Erszébet makes eye contact with Roderich, raising her eyebrows in distaste as she takes a sip of her iced tea as a waitress lays their drinks on the table with a smile at both of them.

“Have you heard anything from your parents?” Erszébet asks him, a sensitive topic, so she treads lightly.

He shrugs. “Still awaiting court dates,” he says sadly. Erszébet sighs for him in pity. Despite his apparent snobbish attitude, his parents had brought up seven kids in a small apartment with two bedrooms, his father a reformed drug-addict and his mother an overworked immigrant with limited English skills. From what she had been able to glean, he endured a difficult childhood, filled with limited finances, some bad apple siblings, and school bullies. Even in high school, he was shoved around for his unusual accent and introverted piano playing. Now his parents were being investigated for child negligence of their youngest child.

“I’m sorry,” she says sincerely, drumming her fingers sadly on the plastic tablecloth.

“I am sure that it will all work out,” Roderich replies definitively, but his heart is not in his words. Maybe because he knows that it won’t.

“So yesterday, I was walking downtown and I saw that they’re remodeling that confusing part of the subway.”

“Finally,” he murmurs. “I’ve lived here for several years, and I’ve never understood that intersection of roads.”

“It’s also super annoying to have to switch subways three times to get to the cafeteria,” she comments casually, stirring her iced tea absent-mindedly with the straw.

“I’ve never quite mastered subway skills,” Roderich admits.

Erszébet smirks playfully, sparks dancing in her smaragdine eyes. “It’s just a combination of street smarts and weaving around crowds.”

“I believe I lack a certain level of street smarts in some instances.”

She chuckles. “Last I checked you lived in New York for most of your life, how do you escape without street smarts?”

“I have difficulty paying attention to certain ‘signs’ that others deem obvious,” he says lightly. The waiter returns to their table, nodding towards the menu and then asking what their choices were.

“I’ll have the talo tortilla with grilled tilapia.” 

“What spice do you want in the habenero sauce?”

She shrugs. “Medium, I guess.”

“And you, sir?” the waiter inquires, not raising his gaze from Erszébet, who shifts uncomfortably.

“May I please have the chorizo and chicken sauté?” Roderich requests evenly, although he looks away, refusing to make eye contact.

“Sure, sure,” he replies flatly, slipping his notebook back into his apron, walking a few steps into a different section of the aisle, and striking up a conversation with a different server.

“He’s creepy,” Erszébet observes, commenting for the first time that night on the rather perverted waiter.

Roderich nods, taking a sip of his water. “His actions are quite inappropriate.” 

Erszébet is not quite sure what to say to that, so she says, “I agree. Some nerve too, with us being on a date and all.”

And despite that they’ve been out together for at least an hour, and they’ve already conversed about sensitive topics to various extents, it’s now that Roderich blushes.

“Here’s your food,” a different waiter tells them a few minutes later, setting their plates on their table with a flourish, not staying to stare or chat. Erszébet and Roderich discuss the food and the restaurant and anything else that comes across their mind, finish their food, and leave together. Roderich drops her off at her doorstep, and offers to walk her in. Erszébet thanks him but refuses, she doesn’t want to wake Feliks up. It’s late and if he catches up her, she’ll have much explaining to do. She sneaks into her house, kicks off her short heels into her closet, and changes into a fitted shirt made of athletic material and pajama pants. Erszébet brushes her teeth and flops backwards into her bed, pulling the covers over head and yanking the cord of the lamp off. As soon as the room darkens, she passes into a sleepful oblivion.


	11. Chapter 11

Erszébet wakes up at six, because she knows Feliks does every morning, and she wants to talk to him. She stumbles into the kitchen, never having been much of a morning person. He’s already gone- his messenger bag and student i.d. card, which are normally against the wall and on the counter, respectively, are nowhere to be seen. The whole place has the air of emptiness. The only sounds are the fridge whirring angrily. She sighs and yawns, yearning to fall back in her bed. But, she recalls vaguely, she has a group project to complete- with Tino. They’re both in Mathematical Foundations for Computer Science I, and they’ve got to design something, or something. She hasn’t even glanced at the rubric. Erszébet punches in his number off the top of her head sleepily and holds it up to her ear. “Hey Tino,” she says, trying to disguise a yawn, after she picks up the phone.

“Hello!” he replies brightly. Damn morning people. “This is about the project, right? Let’s meet at my house, is that okay? It’s already clean anyway from the Easter dinner, might as well take advantage,” he explains.

Erszébet feels guilty. She hadn’t realized that he had already started it, but it was due in a couple days and she wouldn’t have much more free time to work on it between now and then.

“Sounds good, I’ll meet you there in a couple minutes,” she estimates, although she’s actually a bit away. She can always blame the traffic, worst comes to worst.

“Thanks Erszi,” He sounds relieved, probably that she isn’t going to force him to complete the entire project by himself. She hangs up the phone and returns to her room briefly to change into more suitable clothing, simultaneously throwing books and her laptop haphazardly into her bag. Erszébet strips quickly, and picks out clothes at random, deciding on a stretchy patterned shirt that was comfortable but still looked decent, and a pleated black skirt.

A bit of time later, she shows up at his doorstep, knocking tiredly. He opens the door only after a few seconds, with the appearance of being recently electrocuted.

“What happened to you?”

“I tried to fix the toaster,” he relays, trying to pat his hair down from its current position, nearly standing on end.

Erszébet looks at him incredulously. “Why on earth would you do that? That thing’s a deadly weapon, and you have a boyfriend at your disposal who worked as a mechanic for several years,” she reminds him as she steps inside.

“He’s not at my disposal,” Tino replies in horror.

Erszébet shakes her head. “It’s an idiom, just an idiom.” Tino smiles it off, and turns to the table (only a foot or two from the entrance space) to pick up his computer.

“Also, Kiku’s going to be here in a moment, his subway got delayed,” Tino alerts her.

“Who’s Kiku?” she asks blankly, the name not even ringing a bell anywhere inside her brain. 

Tino groans. “He’s working with us on the project. Weren’t you there in class?”

“I was sick with the flu, remember?” she reminds him.

Tino nods. “Right. Well, to answer your question he’s Japanese, majoring in information technology. He’s seems nice, and he’s quite polite.”

“Is he the one who’s friends with Ludwig and Feli?”

Tino tilts his head, a habit of his, considering. “And Ludwig is?”

“The one who gives ‘banging the secretary’ a whole nother meaning,” she retorts with a grin.

He raises his eyebrows in surprise and amusement. “Feli is his secretary?”

“How else do art students make money?” she asks with a laugh. Her sister Nuri is an art grad student in New York City, and she barely has enough money to feed herself-let alone rent her own apartment. Right now she’s trying to secure a position as an art teacher, but it’s proving to be harder than she thought.

Tino laughs. “I suppose you’re right.” Erszébet shrugs, and flips open her binder, scanning through pages as she flips back and forth, looking for the rubric. She’s pretty organized with her notebooks, and it doesn’t take her that long to find it. Before she can read it, there’s a quiet knock at the door. Tino opens it, and a small student holding a textbook to his chest and an overfilled backpack stands there. He bow his head at Tino, and steps inside.

“Hello, thank you for allowing me inside your home,” Kiku says, setting the textbook on top of the table. “I have most of the project completed, all we have to do is finish the diagrams.”

Tino rocks slightly back in shock. “Oh, okay then.” It’s clear that he hadn’t expected Kiku to have completed so much of the project. The diagrams that he speaks of will take less than an hour. 

“We haven’t met,” Erszébet tells Kiku. “I’m Erszébet Héderváry.”

He nods politely at her. “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Héderváry,” he replies, spreading out a few papers on the table, and opening his laptop. It’s actually rather old, clunky, not what she would have expected for a i.t. student. He opens a program and explains briefly how the program utilizes the mathematical concepts that have been most recently encompassed in lessons. 

“Wow, it seems as if most of the work is done,” Tino observes, flipping through a couple of the papers, eyes practically spinning with confusion. Tino is not a math person, he merely took the class to avoid taking Calculus 3, which he claims will actually kill him. 

“So you see, I have set this up to follow the direction of the program key-ins when the function starts,” Kiku says, indicating at the screen.

Tino blinks comically, the effects of his confusion heightened visually by his recent electrocution. His eyes appear to be still slightly vibrating like round blue-lavender stones, or maybe it’s just the light. Erszébet and Kiku put their heads together to fix a glitch, Tino makes them a snack in a vague attempt to be useful. Within the hour, they have finished above and beyond the extent of the group project, and Tino has toasted bagels. He may be sweet, but he isn’t always the most useful in some situations.

“Thank you for your time,” Kiku says graciously, closing the door behind him as he disappears into the hallway. Almost five minutes after he leaves, glass orbs of rain throw themselves against the pavement and windows, breaking into thousands of drops of water. 

“Can I stay here until the rain lets up? I forgot my subway pass at home, and I don’t want to walk all the way home in the rain,” she tells him, plopping down at the kitchen table without waiting for a reply. Despite their separate living accommodations, neither of them minds helping out a good friend.

“Sure thing!” Tino replies brightly. “Although our power goes out a lot, I’ve been meaning to call someone about that-” he trails off with a shrug. 

“It’s fine,” she replies light-heartedly as she leans back in the chair. She feels considerably better since her explosion last night. Tino has such a positive aura that even being in his presence gives her a warm glow of happiness.

“I’m so glad that Kiku got all of that done, although I feel badly about it,” Tino admits, running fingers through his hair.

“I can’t believe I’ve never seen him before. Is he in our class?” she inquires.

He nods, taking a seat at the table next to her. “Yeah, but he sits in the back corner.”

“It’s hard to notice the quiet ones with so many people in a class,” Erszébet relays, and Tino nods in agreement.

“So,” Tino says, clearly changing topics, “How have you been?”

“I went on a date with Roderich,” she retorts.

Tino raises an eyebrow and smirks playfully. “Was he as boring as you remember?”

“He’s not boring!” she protests.

He giggles. “That’s not what you told me when you were dating him. You said that he had nothing interesting to say and was always going on and on about music and stuff you didn’t care about.”

She considers that. “Yeah, I remember, I remember. But it was nice. We went to that Basque restaurant that you liked.”

“And how was it?” he asks.

Erszébet sighs. “The food was good and such, but our waiter was super creepy.”

Tino’s eyes lit up. “I remember him! He was so unpleasant. He said some nasty things to me,” he recalls, as the power flickers.

“What time is it?” Erszébet asks.

“7:31 a.m.,” he answers with a brief glance at the flashing green numbers on the microwave.

“I don’t have class ‘till after she lunch,” she explains. “I finished all of my general required courses last semester, do you remember how many classes I took last year? I barely slept!”

“You about lost your wits. Feliks told me he walked into the kitchen to get a glass of water and you were sleeping against the desk with a book on your head. I’m glad you’re not so stressed this semester,” Tino says cheerily. 

“Me too. I only have two French classes and three math classes, and topics in biology of course,” Erszébet spiels, ticking classes off of her fingers. The biology credit is only for job application purposes, throughout her college experience she’s fit random classes into her schedule. First it was anatomy, then elementary childcare, and even ceramics because it wasn’t too difficult and additionally quite fun. The power flickers back on for a moment, and then off. Tino gets up to light a few candles. It’s light enough outside that even without electric lights, most of the rooms are still visible. 

“I heard that Adv. French Lit. Analysis is pretty difficult,” Tino remarks conversationally.

Erszébet shrugs. “Uh, it’s a lot of writing, and it’s all in French, but Professeur Couture is fair, and he’ll give you help if you need it.”

“I’m not taking French though, so I guess I don’t need to worry about it.”

“What’s your foreign language then?” she queries him.

“English,” he replies. “And Swedish, obviously since it’s required, but I’m fluent in that.”

“Oh, right. Sometimes I forget that it’s not your first language,” she realizes. Tino is from Kurikka, Finland, he moved to Stockholm for college like most of them, since Ljung Vass University has such effective programs for many areas, and its degrees are recognized by many developed countries. It also has a nice campus with well-organized public transportation and for the most part, good teachers.

“Yeah, I think I’ve gotten along well, but I don’t always understands localisms and idioms. I also still have an accent,” he expresses.

“It isn’t that noticeable. And everyone has an accent to some extent, right? Because of the different dialects and such.”

“But you don’t have a New York accent or whichever,” he reminds her. “And neither does Feliks.”

“I was brought up in Maryland, remember? And Feliks’ mother tongue is Polish.”

Tino nods slowly. “Right, I forgot. It’s hard to keep track, with all of these nationalities and languages.”

“It sure makes for an interesting environment, with lots of interesting people,” she comments. She feels lucky to have been exposed to so many cultures during her lifetime, especially with growing up in the neighborhood that she did in New York, with Chinese and Italians and Russians and Germans and Latinos and many more.

The door opens then, and Berwald steps in, raincoat pulled over his face, which he sheds before he steps all the way inside and hangs on the hook. He’s a meteorologist (an operational forecaster), if Erszébet remembers correctly, and most days he goes to work at 1 a.m. and gets home at about 8 a.m.- an awful work schedule if she’s ever seen one. 

“Good morning,” Tino greets him happily. “Any life-threatening weather emergencies today?”

“Storm,” Berwald replies with a shrug. 

Tino turns around in his chair slightly. “Ah, I saw they’re releasing a warning to stay inside or something, because they think it has the possibility to develop into a, what’s it called again?”

“Cyclone,” Erszébet says. It’s been buzzing on the radio and television all day long. Honestly, besides Gudrun, Sweden hardly ever sees natural disasters. Any remote threat, and at least one meteorological organization will release a warning, and many of her friends will be concerned. Whereas when she lived in Maryland, no one batted an eyelash at such warnings, because they were so common.

Berwald nods in response to Tino, turning towards the kitchen to pour himself a cup of coffee, most likely running on little to no sleep.

“I better text Feliks,” Erszébet says, picking up her phone. “He usually comes home after his Organic Chemistry or something class, and if I’m not there he’ll probably be confused,” she explains, punching out a few words and pressing send.

“He texted me an hour ago and I already told him you were here,” Tino replies.

“Oh. Well, whatever. Double information won’t hurt,” she responds.

Tino nods. “Right,” he replies, opening his phone as it buzzes “I just got a text, it says classes have been cancelled for the day. They are running a drill with the emergency trained student unit at the university. Make-up is said to be necessary via and email and online resources.”

Erszébet leans back in the chair, stretching her hands above her head. Feliks texts dings and reads as _k but tino already told me. i’ll be out for a while, might not be back til late._

_be safe and stuff, k?_ she texts him back.

There’s a few minutes before he replies. _yeah, dont worry._

She looks back up from her phone, slipping it back inside her purse. “I can leave now if you want,” she offers, not wanting to impose. Berwald and Tino are both so busy, and she knows they don’t have a lot of time together. 

“No, stay!” Tino orders, a smile in his eyes. “You’re not going out in the rain, especially without a coat. Although I’ve got to call Eduard, he was supposed to have been in Talinn by now and I want to make sure he’s okay.” Erszébet is not familiar with Eduard, but she’s heard Tino mention him before. He’s either his longtime friend from school, or his cousin, probably the friend if the brief memory she has is serving her correctly.

“No, it’s fine, I have a lab due next week and I can get a head start. Can I use your computer?” she requests.

He nods at her, indicating to the table, where it is positioned near the center. Erszébet opens the laptop and checks Professor Yandra’s webpage, where he keeps the homework and handouts posted. She opens the lab packet and skims through it. 

The Effect of the Type of Sugar on the Respiration Rate of Yeast, she types after her name, the date, and class period. It’s one of the easier labs they’ve completed, with four sugars: glucose, fructose, lactose, and maltose, and fairly simple computer calculations. A few minutes later, a paragraph into the background page, Tino returns, nervously fidgeting with his hands. “He didn’t pick up, do you think he’s okay?”

“I can check the flight status online,” Erszébet offers, trying to mitigate his fears, rather than have him fret for hours on end just because Eduard’s battery is down or the volume is off. “What’s the flight number?”

Tino tilts his head to the side. “I don’t remember, but it came out of Helsinki and is going into Talinn.” 

“Do you know what time it left?” she inquires, as she fills in Helsinki and Talinn into the advanced search boxes.

“7:00 I think. The flight only takes 35 minutes, I don’t know why he wouldn’t have called- he always does and I asked him to before he left.”

“I found it,” Erszébet alerts him, cutting of his rant gently. Afterwards, she looked up a news site for more information. “The plane just took off, until ten minutes ago they’d been running bag checks because some idiot college kid made a threat. He’s been taken into custody by the Finnish police and such, but Eduard might not have gotten his phone back yet.”

“Ah, thank goodness,” Tino says, relaxing into a chair. “I’m so glad that no one is hurt.”

Erszébet nods as she sits down in the other armchair opposite the hearth. “Yeah, me too. I don’t understand those kids who think they’re so cool and have the right to threaten the lives of innocent people. Causing panic doesn’t make you cool, it makes you a douchebag.”

“I didn’t do anything! I’m not that kind of person!” Tino shrieks in response, getting to his feet. Berwald looks over from the table as he types up some formal document, glancing sharply at her.

Erszébet sighs. “I’m using ‘you’ as an impersonal pronoun, I’m not accusing you of anything.”

“Oh,” Tino retorts, clearly embarrassed as he sit back down. “Sorry about that, I keep forgetting.”

“It’s fine,” she says as she finishes the last paragraph of her background and types up the hypothesis she scribbled down on the lab before beginning the experiment. It ended up being wrong, but Yandra doesn’t care as long as you have one written out.

“I hope the rain stops soon,” Tino groans, looking frustrated. He folds his hands across his chest for a moment, before picking up a Finnish newspaper off the end table and thumbing through it boredly. He doesn’t like to be caged up, he likes to be out and about, volunteering and taking classes and helping people.

“Sometimes a literal storm is a mere physical manifestation of a figurative one,” Erszébet replies without thinking. It’s a line from somethings she saw on an internet site, and it seems to fit. She wonders intently what figurative storms are plaguing her and her friends at the moment, as she watches the rain pound against the window.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Although my first language is Chinese, I speak Finnish (all right anyway), and when I was learning English, the 'generic/impersonal you' was one of the hardest things to get down. I still have trouble with it even now. Also, it's been about six months since when I in Stockholm, so I'm sorry for any inaccuracies.


	12. Chapter 12

Erszébet doesn’t seek him out, not really. After the rain lets up a little bit, she is on her way home when she sees him sitting against a bus stop sign that she knows doesn’t arrive for several hours. It’s late enough that he shouldn’t be out without a legitimate reason.

“What are you doing?” she asks Gilbert Beilshmidt, brushing a chunk of brown hair out of her face. The rain has matted loose strands to her face, and Erszébet wishes that she had a jacket. She doesn’t stop though to talk to him, it’s only a few words in passing.

“What do you care?” he shouts back at her as she walks by. He gets to his feet and catches up to her with a few long strides.

“That bus doesn’t come for at least three hours. Tell me where you’re going, I can tell you a metro route you can take instead,” she offers, although most of her advises against giving any advice at all. Let him rot, she tells herself. He’s a parasite, a toxic parasite.

“So you can stalk me?” he snorts in response, chuckling heavily at her suggestion.

Erszébet rolls her eyes and replies harshly, “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Whatever, Erszi. You know, you were a lot more mature in high school.” He looks insecure, she observes keenly, as he crosses his arms over his chest and glances at his feet for a moment.

“Look at the subway map, it’s down that street, less than half a block,” she tells him, giving him something that’s maybe close to a fleeting half-smile, and turning towards her apartment building with a laugh. She climbs the stairs, and doesn’t look back, even though she can feel his eyes on her. Erszébet enjoys leading him on for some reason that she can’t explain, she has since the day they met. She has always known that he’s wanted more than fleeting almost half-smiles and vague flirtation, but she’s never even considered him. She needs stability in her life, a rock that she can hook her boat to, an anchor. Gilbert is anything but, a floating piece of driftwood that goes over waterfalls and down ravines and anywhere it wants to go, never following the rules, only the current. 

“Feliks! Open up!” Erszébet yells as she bangs on the door, which isn’t normally locked. If anything, he’s chronically forgetful about things like locking doors and windows and turning off stoves.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says lazily, and she hears the door unlock and sees Feliks open the door.

“How on earth did you remember to lock the door?” she inquires confusedly. She can’t even remember the last time he bothered to flip the deadbolt closed.

“I dunno, I guess I just did,” Feliks says with a shrug.

“Inherently unlikely, but I’ll let it slide,” she retorts with a smirk, stepping inside and stamping out her soaked shoes off on the door mat, shivering instinctively.

“Our power’s out?” Erszébet asks for confirmation, reaching out a hand to attempt to turn a light on. The can lighting in the ceiling doesn’t even blink, it remains static and without glow.

“Well, this sucks,” Erszébet sighs. “Also, we should call our electric company, because our power goes out quite frequently when the rest of our building still has power. Tino and Berwald have the same problem, I think.”

“A lot of people have power out,” Feliks retorts, indicating out the window-where many of the normally lit windows are dark. “Too much wind, a lot of rain,” he remarks laconically.

“Are we going to talk about our disagreement last night?” Erszébet asks him, wrapping her hair in a towel to keep it off of her neck. 

“We could,” Feliks says vaguely, shifting uncomfortably. She notices as he swings his good leg nervously that his previously stiffly brace around his knee is now smaller, a fabric brace with less stiffness with than the previous one.

“So, I vote that we promote an environment of openness. I don’t need you tell me everything about your life, but at least be willing to provide basic information when I request it- for example, where you are during the day?”

“I’m not allowed to tell you that,” he retorts, rolling his eyes in frustration.

Erszébet takes a deep breath, trying to keep her voice calm and level. “You’re making me concerned. Are you in trouble?”

“I’m,” he pauses hesitantly. “You can’t tell anyone. You have to swear,” he tells her seriously.

“I swear,” she replies.

He breathes heavily. “I’m testifying in an assault case. They’re trying to bring down some mob guy who emigrated here illegally. He tried to hurt someone that I know. That’s all I can tell you,” he adds hastily, eyes shifting back and forth from her face to out the window nervously.

“Oh my god,” she whispers. “Is your friend okay? Are you okay?”

“I really can’t discuss it or anything. They said it could like corrupt the trial,” Feliks explains, gesturing with his un-casted hand. Erszébet is struck with pity. She feels awful, how Feliks always gets mixed up in everything, always at the center of every problem whether it’s his fault or not. More often than not, it isn’t. It’s usually a mix-up, and Feliks gets entangled in trip-wires and strings that other people lay out. She can’t imagine how he was carrying this all around. “Did you see it happen?” she asks him, voice struggling to keep from wavering.

“I’m a witness,” he replies stiffly. 

She is hesitant to react for a moment. “I’m so sorry,” she tells him, reaching out and giving him a hug. “I can’t imagine.” He pulls away, looking like a child, with too much responsibility put on his shoulders. Erszébet feels terrible for suspecting he was ignoring her or something. 

“So what about you?” Feliks inquires, crossing his arms suspiciously. “Am I just going to stand here and tell you a bunch of totally top secret stuff and you’re just going to pretend like you didn’t sneak out that night?”

A bit shocked, she recovers and replies, “I went on a date with Roderich.”

“Oh, details, details!” Feliks says, waving his hand excitedly, changing from melancholy to enthusiastic almost instantly.

“He showed up at our apartment and asked me if I would go to dinner with him,” she explains, still uneasy from the first part of their conversation. She itches to know more about the assault case that he’s apparently testiying in, but she also knows that she can’t ask, so she decides to go with the flow of the conversation.

“Just like that? He just walked in? How does he have the key?” Feliks inquires.

“You never lock the door, and besides, it’s not like he hasn’t been in before,” she says.

“Continue, continue,” Feliks commands her with false sternness, a laugh in his eyes.

“Then he picked me up after you went to sleep, sorry about that by the way, and he drove me to that Basque restaraunt.”

“I’ve been there!” Feliks says. “Etxeko Sukaldaritza, right?”

Erszébet raises an eyebrow. “When have you been there?”

“It’s nearby,” he says rapidly. “I meant that I’d seen it,” he lies, but she decides to ignore it. It’s not her place to question what restaurants he has and hasn’t been to.

“The waiter was a perv, but the food and conversation was nice,” she surmises.

Feliks smiles. “What’d you guys talk about?”

“High school, the perv waiter, music, the works,” she says with a shrug. 

“Sounds boring,” Feliks retorts in a sing-song voice.

Erszébet glares at him, pretending to be a offended. “What do you talk about on dates?”

“I don’t go on dates, silly,” he says briskly, turning around slightly to fidget with a pitcher of water so she can’t see his face.

“You had a girlfriend in highschool,” she reminds him.

He shrugs. “Yeah, I remember.”

“She was cute. What did you guys talk about that was so much more fascinating?”

Feliks sighs, head probably filling with unfortunate memories. “Zosia and I gossipped mostly, about classmates and those couple girls that acted like nuns but were actually dirtier than porn stars. We also made fun of people who were mean to us in Polish so that they couldn’t yell back,” he says fondly.

“You guys were a cute couple,” Erszébet recalls.

“We became like siblings, it wasn’t working anymore,” he reminds her coldly. “And stop reminiscing. You just liked her because she was trying to learn Hungarian.”

“She was also a family friend,” she says. “How long did you guys go out for?”

“It was a long time ago,” he mutters, turning away and sitting down.

She decides to push harder. It isn’t often that they talk about these things. “Remind me again, was she Polish?”

“A mix, here and there,” Feliks answers, looking slightly uncomfortable.

She raises an eyebrow. Erszébet has met Feliks’ parents more than a few times. His mother is a textbook rags to middle class immigrant who washed clothes and did housework for wealthy people, although now she works as a hospital receptionist. She’s a strong woman, with strong opinions about a lot of things. His father is much more passive than his mother, going along with most everything she declares. Erszébet remembers his mom being a bit miffed when she found out that she was Hungarian and not Polish. “Were your parents mad that you weren’t dating a Polish girl?”

“I guess so,” Feliks grumbles, and it’s clear that this line of the conversation is over. Erszébet wonders if what he said about not going on dates is true. She doubts it is, although Feliks hasn’t told her about anyone really since Zosia and him had broken up. They had remained friends for several years afterwards, becoming like sister and brother, but they had in the last year or so fallen out of contact. She had opted to study abroad in Bern, and Feliks had headed to Stockholm on scholarship for mathematics.

“Where are the matches?” Feliks queries as he digs through the silverware drawer.

“I don’t know,” she says. “It’s your fault for reorganizing everything all the time.”

He rolls his eyes, continuing to shuffle through the utensils. “Ah! Found it! I’d figure I’d light some candles, ‘cause we have a bunch and we’ve never used them before.”

“The weather channel is recommending that we make sure we have an emergency kit together. Do we have one of those?” she asks, even though she already knows the answer.

“Of course not,” Feliks snorted in amusement. “Who do I look like, Tino?”

“I’m sure _he_ has a first aid kit,” Erszébet scolds him for no particular reason. She’s not serious, and he knows it.

“That’s because he’s paranoid and his boyfriend is a meteorologist,” Feliks replies.

“Tino isn’t paranoid!” Erszébet protests.

“You’re paranoid, too,” he says casually. “You carry pepper spray and a pocket knife everywhere.”

Erszébet would like to reply, ‘I’m not the one who witnesses federal crimes and gets into trouble every time he sets outside’, but it’s too far, and it’s certainly not kind. So instead she says, “I like to be safe.”

“Safety first and all of that,” Feliks says boredly, flipping open a small box that is always on the mantle but she’s never tried to open before. It’s pretty and ornate, carved out of wood and inset with pink crystal. “My Babcia gave it to me before she died. It’s a game called ciupy.” 

“How do you play?” she inquires curiously, having never heard of it before. She’s surprised he’s never asked her to play since his grandmother apparently gave him the set. He picks five stones out of the box, smooth and gray without stray marks. They almost look manufactured, but based on the small pictographs and the Polish words written on the side that she can sort of translate, they are river rocks.

“So I roll them on the floor, to spread them out. Then I pick one to throw in the air, and while it’s in the air I pick up one of the stones. Then I have to catch the stone that I threw into the air, and I do that over and over until all the stones are gone,” Feliks illustrates, gesturing as he does an example with the stones.

“That’s Level 1,” Feliks adds as she looks confused.

Erszébet asks, “How many are there?”

Feliks says, “There’s six, and it gets progressively more difficult.”

“Wow, this is complicated,” she says.

“We don’t have to play if you don’t want to,” Feliks offers, fingering the carving on the box, looking insecure.

“Let’s try it,” she replies.

Feliks nods, sitting down on the uneven wood floor and extending his hand into the box to pick up the rocks, but not before setting the carved case on the hearth and then rolls them like one would with dice. He picks one, tosses it into the air, and picks up one of the rocks, and then catches the thrown stone in his palm. Feliks does this again and again, each time the amount of stones encased in his hand increasing. 

“Try?” he asks, handing her the stones. “You start with twenty points at the beginning of the level, and for each stone you drop you lose a point. If you run out, you lose.”

“Okay,” she nods in understanding, rolling the stones onto the floor except for the throwing stone. She tosses it into the air and as she tries to pick up one, it falls onto the ground, a few feet away.

“You’re not very good at this,” he observes, and crosses out her score and puts 19. Determined, she tries again, this time barely capturing it. 

“The levels get harder from here on out,” Feliks reminds her with a smirk as she struggles to even complete the first level. When she has completed it, she has 16 points remaining, and by the time level two is over, she’s lost all of her points but one, and she has to watch while he finishes all six, only losing three points in the entire game. 

“Wow, you’re really good at that,” she comments as puts the stones back in the box and the box bath on the mantel.

“I’ve played it a lot,” he explains. “My great-grandmother used to as well in Poland even when she was hiding from whoever happened to be after her family.”

“Ah,” she says. Her great-grandparents, the Hungarian ones, endured hard times as well in their era, and she has heard the stories. She’s been to the museums, and it all makes her very sad. The mere idea that someone could hate a group of people so much that they don’t even think that they have the right to live, is frightening to her. Erszébet knows that people like this still exist, but she doesn’t like to think about.

“I’ll make lunch,” Feliks volunteers. He can be a bit lazy in terms of chores, but there are a few that he actually likes to do, like vacuuming, washing dishes, and cooking, but ask him to sweep the floor and he’ll go into full-fledged complaining mode.

“What are you going to make? We don’t have any power.”

“We have a camp stove, don’t we?” Feliks reponds.

Erszébet nods. “Yeah, but I think it’s in the linen closet,” she says, gesturing towards the hallway with her finger. 

“Okay, so I’m going to boil beets on the stove, and then I can make cold borscht.”

She ducks under the view of her computer, pretending to be looking intently at something, so he can’t see the disgusted face she’s making right now. Borscht has the oddest combination of ingredients, and while it’s tolerable warm, it’s nearly impossible to smile at Feliks and say that’s it’s tasty when it tastes so disgusting. He’s quite a good cook, but even if a famous chef concocted it, she probably wouldn’t want to eat it.

“Why don’t we just pick up some take-away?” Erszébet suggests. “That way we don’t have to mess around with wiring up the stove. There’s a new spot down the street, I think it’s Latin American.”

Feliks pouts. “You don’t like my borscht.”

“I like it!” she lies passionatley. “But I don’t want you to catch our apartment on fire with a rusty camp stove that we haven’t used in two years.”

“Fine,” he concedes, crossing his arms and putting the beets back on the counter, in the shade under an upper cabinet so that they didn’t get too warm while the power remained off. “You call, I’ll pick it up.”

“I just need to find my phone,” she admits, digging through her bag before feeling the cold metallic device wedged between a textbook and a binder. Erszébet looks up the number, and punches it into the keypad. 

“Hello, I’m calling to ask for the take-away menu.”

The man on the phone has a pleasant voice and he replies, “It’s on our website, but I can read you the specials.”

“Thank you, but I found it. May I please have the arepas with pork? Just a moment, please, I need to ask my friend what he wants.” She holds the phone away from her mouth, covering the receiver with one hand, and shows Feliks the mobile version of the menu. “And can we also get the vegetable fajita?”

“Sure thing, pick up is in fifteen minutes. Oh, and what’s your name?”

“Erszébet.”

There’s a short pause, and the phone crackles over the bad line. “Just ask the boy at the counter for the order under Erszébet, okay?” he instructs her, as if she’s never gone for take-away before. She’s tempted to roll her eyes, but she supposes that it’s better than someone who gives her no help at all.

“Thanks,” Erszébet tells the man in the recevier, snapping it closed with a sigh and extending her hands over head in a stretch. “Are you sure you want to pick it up? It’s a few blocks.”

“Yeah, I want to,” Feliks responds, flipping a strand of flaxen hair behind his ear as he tidies up their dishes from the previous night.

“Okay, just be careful,” she warns him.

Feliks laughs. “Careful is like my middle name.”

“You don’t have a middle name,” she chides him.

He rolls his eyes. “I know, I know. I’ve been cheated of the oppurtunity because my parents couldn’t decide on anything.”

“It’s not really an oppurtunity, it’s just an extra thing to fill out on forms,” Erszébet remarks.

“I still wish I had one,” he complains, leaning against the counter.

“Your last name makes up for it,” she chuckles, referring to the absurd nature of so many constants and foreign letters in one surname.

“I don’t want to hear it, Erszi,” he jokes. “Yours isn’t exactly a cakewalk either.”

She smiles. “Oh, go ahead, blame the Hungarians for their confusing language.”

“It’s not confusing if it’s your native language,” he counters.

Erszébet shrugs. “You said your relatives make fun of you for your Polish, and that was your native language.”

“That’s ‘cause Polish is totally difficult.”

“So’s Hungarian,” she replies, and Feliks nods as she finishes her lab. It’s been a while since she’s done something so ahead of time, and it feels good. She decides that she needs to get back into the this routine of staying ahead of things. It feels good to get something of this magnitude finished and out of her life.

“Set a timer to pick up the take-away, or you’ll probably forget,” Erszi recommends. “Actually, I’ll do it for you,” she offers, picking up his phone off the table.

“Hey, drop that!” Feliks shrieks, batting it out of her hands and snatching it back.

Erszébet rolls her eyes. “I wasn’t going to filter through it, I was just going to set a timer. Chill,” she tells him.

“I can do it,” he mumbles, fixing a timer for ten minutes and dropping it back on the acrylic countertop.

“Fine, fine,” she says. “You might want to leave now though, it’s going to take you a long time to walk because of the storm.”

“Good idea, I’ll get a jacket,” he retorts, janking his navy blue rain jacket off of the hook by the door. “I’ll be back in about twenty minutes, see ya,” he waves enthusiastically, limping slightly out of the door and closing it behind him.


	13. Chapter 13

Twenty-five minutes later, Feliks shows up at the door, opening it since it hasn’t been locked, holding the take-away bag and the rain jacket (which is far too large for him) is soaked, dripping with water.

“The restaurant was pretty,” he comments, setting the boxes down on the table and stripping off his rain jacket. Erszébet shrugs, not really interested in the visual aesthetics of the take-away place. He passes her her box of pork arepas, and picks up his, taking a seat at the table with a fork from the nearest drawer.

“I’m leaving soon,” Feliks alerts her, after chewing a bit of his vegetable fajita.

“The case?” she queries him, then shoving a bite of the arepa into her mouth. It’s delicious, moist and well-seasoned. 

“No, personal matter,” he replies easily, and she doesn’t press him any farther, for fear of a shutdown. “Did you know I have to go dissect a sheep eye in biochemistry?”

“Yuck, how are you holding up, with your weak stomach and all?” she asks.

“Trust me, there are people in that class that are worse than me. One of my friends nearly passed out when they brought out some medical diagrams,” he chuckles.

“Really, wow?” She’s surprised that someone in biochemistry would be so flincy at anatomy or biological dissections. Erszébet has a stomach of steel when it comes to these things, she’s able to clean out mold and mildew from the insides of faucets without retching up whatever she’s eaten in the past 24 hours.

“He’s even wants to go into med,” Feliks adds with a smile.

“How on earth is he going to operate on a nasty wound with such a delicate stomach?” she asks.

“Beats me,” he replies casually, slicing up the remaining parts of the tortilla. Erszébet thinks it’s weird that he uses a fork for such things, she picks up tacos with her hands like a normal human being.

“But anyway, the case is going to trial soon, or at least that’s what the person in charge says, so I’ll be able to spend more time doing my work and less running around and trying to remember things I don’t remember.”

She swallows. “I take it that it’s stressful?”

“You have no idea,” he says, with finality, clearly clamming up to any more questions.

“I think I’m going to call Roderich. Maybe we can find something to do,” she says with a sigh, tossing her now empty take-away box into the trash can by the refrigerator.

“Tell him I said hi,” Feliks says, getting up from his seat, zipping up his raincoat and pulling up the hood, and grabbing an umbrella and his backpack from beside the door. “Bye! Have fun with whatever!” he shouts just as the door is closing. 

“Bye!” she screams after him so that he’ll hear it. She sits back down at her desk, and resolves to work until every possible assignment that she could possibly complete is done. 

Five hours later, Erszébet opens her phone hastily to call Feliks or maybe Tino, but there’s already a text from Roderich. She’s finished her work, and she’d like to have some fun. She hopes he’s asking her out somewhere fun and not telling her that he doesn’t want to see her anymore.

_Hello Erszébet. I was wondering if you would accompany me to the festivities at Feliciano Vargas’ house. I am not entirely sure what we are intended to be celebrating, but I was invited so I feel obligated to attend._

She pauses. She has heard of the parties at Feliciano’s house, and Erszébet is well aware that they often end in disaster. They aren’t the kind that she, Tino, Feliks, Roderich, and the rest celebrate bi-annually. These are the kind with unearthly amounts of alcohol and craziness and all sorts of chaos and madness. She is hesitant, but she replies _yeah sure, can you pick me up?_

The reply is instantaneous. She responds _yup_ and puts her phone away. Meanwhile, since it’s almost 6, she needs to get ready. Erszébet does not intend to dress too fancily, but there’s no harm in looking nice. She doesn’t feel like putting on makeup, so she applies a bit of foundation and some chapstick, and pulls a floaty lilac dress over her head and runs a hairbrush hurriedly through her wild brown locks. After plaiting her hair into a neat braid, she runs out the door and grabs her purse on her way. Erszébet reminds herself that she needs to apply for a driver’s license as she pulls her rain coat over her head and the sleeves down on her wrists. All of her friends can drive, and she just hasn’t gotten around to filling out the paperwork. She climbs down the stairs and leans against the wall, expecting a car to pull up, but instead it’s Roderich on his own feet, wrapped in a long raincoat with prominent buttons. He smiles at her pleasantly.

“It’s not far, he lives just up the street, so I thought I’d conserve fuel,” Roderich explains. Erszébet has never been more glad for her continual habit of wearing sensible shoes.

“How late does the party go to?” she inquires, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes.

Roderich shrugs. “I believe many patrons stay the night for various reasons, but the formal celebrations end at 11 or 12.”

She nods. “Do you know who’s going to be there?”

“Us, Feliciano, his half-brother Lovino, Antonio, the people that live above them whose names I am not aware of, Matthew, Alfred, Ludwig, Kiku, Heracles, maybe a few other people. Feliciano isn’t exactly very specific,” Roderich explains, gesturing mildly. “And I did receive information as to the nature of the celebrations. Apparently Feliciano has been accepted into a painting assistantship.”

“Already? Don’t you have to be a grad student to do that?” she asks, surprised.

“He is, a first year, Feliciano got his b.a. in an accelerated college, two years,” Roderich replies.

Erszébet raises her eyebrows. “That’s crazy. How did he manage to accomplish that?”

“He took a lot of courses each year, I would suppose. He didn’t have a minor though, so that might have contributed to it.”

“What was his major?”

“Fine arts, of course. I wouldn’t have expected anything less of him,” Roderich sniffs. They’ve known each other since they were quite small. Feli is Italian but related to Roderich through some grandparent, and moved to America to stay with them for several years after his mother died. His half-brother Lovino, according to Roderich, did not get such a good deal- he ended up with his father, an apparently Arabic man of unknown descent who moved frequently and paid little attention to him. But anyways, Roderich was a father or an older brother figure to Feliciano, despite their age similarity.

“Ah, good for him. I’m happy he’s found a suitable position besides being Ludwig’s rather useless secretary,” she comments.

“Useless for everything except playing with on desks,” Roderich retorts quietly, a smile playing to his lips. Despite his outward stiffness towards him, Erszébet thinks that Roderich likes Ludwig. They’ve also known each other for a long time.

“True, true,” Erszébet laughs and then Roderich indicates to the building to their right, presumably the apartment in which the party is being held.

“Hey you guys! I’m so happy you came!” Feliciano shouts from one of the high windows as he throws the windowsill upwards and gives them a giant smile she can see from the street.

“Get away from the window!” she hears someone order firmly, and a hand drags him out from his precarious position that has him halfway draped out into the air. Erszébet raises her eyebrows at Roderich, a grin splitting on her face. Feli had always been funny, his silly antics and contagious smile. They go up the stairs, almost laughing at the thought of seeing him again, and knock on the door.

“Yay!” Feli shrieks at them, and Erszébet catches a brief glimpse of people clutching their ears at the high-pitched nature of the scream before being yanked with surprising strength into an enthusiastic hug encasing both herself and Roderich in Feli’s arms. “So, I think Roderich probably already told you but I got hired, with a what’s it called, assistantship to a painting teacher at the nearby high school, his name is Francis and he’s nice!” he says, pulling them both into the house energetically.

“That’s really cool!” Erszébet exclaimed. “Make sure you do all your work though!” she chides him, like a mother would to a child. “Don’t fall behind, I’ve heard assistantships are a lot of time,” she adds. Her sister got fired from an assistantship in ceramics for not completing all of her work.

“It’s going to be super fun, I think! I love painting, so painting isn’t work at all so it’s not really work so it’s kind of like just doing fun stuff all day and then get paid for it,” he says brightly, leading them into the kitchen, and indicating at a young man with blond hair tied up with a red ribbon with white stitching, blue eyes laughing at a joke someone had made. She doesn’t recognize him. “This is Francis, he lives above us too, so I know him well!” he explains.

The person whose name is apparently Francis smiles at her, and says in a thick accent, “It’s a pleasure. Now, who is this, Feli?” he asks with a cheeky smirk.

“She’s Erszébet, she’s a statistics major, and this is Roderich, he’s plays the piano and violin but I don’t know what his major is,” Feli admits.

“Nice to meet both of you,” Francis says with a nod, turning back to the conversation surrounding the kitchen counter that juts out in the center. She vaguely recognizes the man who’s standing next to Francis as the person who helps out in applied biology occasionally- he’s a med student if she remembers correctly. Then there’s Matthew, Alfred, Ludwig, a lawyer or attorney or something, and the perpetually cheery Spaniard, Antonio or something, hovering over Feliciano’s half brother with a smile plastered on his face and a smirk in his eyes. Then Erszébet sees Gilbert, who’s laughing at an exasperated Ludwig. She decides to pretend she either doesn’t notice his presence or doesn’t care enough to react. The med student that helps in her class looks at her, prominent eyebrows drawn over his eyes in thought. “You’re in a class that I help out in.”

“Yeah, I remember you,” she says. “What’s your name?” she asks.

“Arthur Kirkland,” he replies primly, stark contrast against his slightly un-kept flaxen hair and jacket flecked with various colors of paint, unusual since pre-med students aren’t usually associated with artistic interest. “I understand that you’re pursuing a career as a statistician.”

“Yeah,” she replies blankly, unsure of how he came across this information.

He senses her confusion and crosses his arms over his arms, and it does not escape her that the action is more than a little defensive. “Ah, I’m sorry, Francis is on good terms with Vash, your statistics teacher in high school?”

Erszébet nods, unsure of what to add to this going-nowhere conversation, so she turns to Rodrich, but he isn’t there. It isn’t like him to leave without offering an explanation, so she turns her head discretely around the room, and sees him speaking with Gilbert, and he’s smiling. Slightly taken aback, Erszébet returns to the conversation, where Feli is rambling about the principal of the high school, with Francis adding helpful details at pauses in the conversation while he sips from a glass of wine. She feels out of place, she doesn’t know very many people here, and the people that she does know are acquainted with nearly everyone in the room. So she looks to Lovino, a last resort if anything. He’s not unkind to her, he’s mainly nasty to men, but she’s still a bit uneasy with free conversation with him. “So, are you still majoring in linguistics?”

He raises his eyebrows. “Yes, and you with statistics?”

“Hello Erzsébet!” Antonio exclaims before she even has the chance to nod in reply. Antonio is the only one who calls her by her actual name, which would be unusual if he didn’t have odd nicknames or pet names for everyone he comes across. “How have you been recently?”

“I’ve been well, a lot less stressful schedule this semester,” she comments, and out of the corner of her eyes she sees Roderich take a sip of some sort of alcohol.

“Oh, yes, I heard about that from Gilbert. He was worried about you,” he says obliviously, and Lovino elbows him with a certain venom in the rib cage as he sits down on the arm of the chair that Lovino is currently perched in. Antonio barely flinches, and dusts himself off gingerly as he gets to his feet. “Now, Lovi, what did we say about using our words?” he reminds him with a teasing grin, clearly seeking to embarrass him, if only a little. Lovino jumps to his feet, looking ready to hit him, but Antonio glances at him significantly and puts out a steadying hand. Lovino eases back into the chair, scowling. Antonio grins easily at her, so easily. “So, what brings you here? I wasn’t aware you were close with Feli.”

“He and Roderich are practically brothers or something,” she replies.

“Ah, are you and Roderich an item now?” he inquires pleasantly. 

She shakes her head, and then nods, unsure. “I’m not really sure.”

“If he paid for dinner, you’re dating,” Antonio tells her in a sing-song voice. “He is so frugal, even at the best of times.

“Then I suppose we’re together then,” she says with a shrug.

“You guys are cute,” Antonio observes cheerfully, patting Lovino on the shoulder, fingers lingering on the skin connecting his neck to his collar bone.

“Thanks, I guess,” she replies, migrating back over to the conversation, where Roderich has returned, looking vaguely flustered, cheeks pink under the lights of can lighting.

“Are you running a fever?” Erszébet asks him, but even she is not so naive, as she puts a hand to his forehead.

“Your forehead is very hot, did you eat something bad?” He’s clearly drunk, and clearly smitten- and most likely not with her.

He shakes his head too quickly, and removes her hand from his head with an elegant hand. “I’m quite certain that I’ve just gotten a bit overheated.”

She waits for him to get involved in a conversation about music before slipping away, layers of lilac sheer floating as she walks. She finds Gilbert on the frays of the room, leaning against the wall opposite the kitchen. 

“So,” she says casually, leaning against the wall space next to him. “Seducing my boyfriend? You just stoop to all sorts of new lows, don’t you,” she says, keeping her voice level and conversational.

“Don’t you think you’re leaping to a conclusion by assuming that _I/i > seduced _him_?” he retorts, eyes red in the light._

“I’m not leaping to any conclusions, but I’m telling you that I would prefer that you keep away from the people that I’m dating,” she suggests lightly.

“It sounds like he’s not really yours if he’s able to get all hot and bothered by a simple conversation,” he says cheerfully, giving her a winning smile and winking as he returns to kitchen in a jaunty walk. Erszébet shrugs of the shell-shock and trots into the bathroom, shutting the door and glancing at her reflection at her mirror, shocked. She never thought that she could be so jealous, she’s never seen herself as the “jealous-type”- that was always Feliks and she was always the open one. And yet, here she is, standing in front of Feliciano’s mosaic framed mirror and looking at a girl’s reflections who wraps boys around her finger, lets them hang, and then gets angry when they have other affections. Erszébet can’t believe herself, can’t believe that she’s let herself regress this far. She grips the laminate countertop, fingernails practically making dents in the synthetic surface and stares at her face, a stiff braid ensnaring lose brown curls and green eyes the color of that Mexican pepper, a poblano. She has even features, but it doesn’t matter because she’s being a jerk. A bitch. Most of her wants to start crying, but she holds her composure, like she almost always does. Erszébet looks down at the laminate countertop and sighs heavily. She opens her phone and calls Feliks, turning on the water so the details of their conversation won’t be overheard.

“Hey, I’m stuck at a party that I really don’t want to be at, can you pick me up?” she asks, struggling to keep her voice level and casual.

“Where are you?” he inquires, voice rushed.

“Feli’s. I’d walk but it started raining again and I think I just saw a lightpole fall over,” she explains, gaze flicking to the window as a large black cylinder falls onto the street across her line of vision. Mildly panicked, she adds, “Please?”

“Sure, I’ll be right there, but I’m giving someone else a ride as well so I hope you don’t mind company.”

“Of course not, unless you’re transporting psychopaths.”

It’s a bad joke, and Feliks doesn’t laugh. Erszébet once again asks herself what on earth she is doing with her life. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.” Erszébet opens the bathroom door discretely, shutting off the water, and grabs her jacket and bag as casually as she can. She’s pretty sure no one notices, they’re too absorbed in whatever vividly interesting story Francis is telling about a fellow teacher. She sees Roderich laughing mildly, clearly intoxicated, as he leans onto the countertop as if it is the only thing keeping them on their feet. She opens the bathroom window and steps outside, pulling up her dress a few inches to avoid getting too much water on it. Feli has a fire escape, it’s an old one, but it still functions well enough for regular use. In the height of hers and Feli’s friendship, she’d utilize it to get up to see him in the rare event the door was locked. Pulling on her rain jacket and tucking her small purse against her chest, she climbs down the slick ladder, keeping a death grip on the handrails on either side of the ladder itself. Erszébet finishes descending, hopping onto the sidewalk with a certain feeling of self-satisfaction, despite the underlying self-loathing. She texts Feliks and alerts of him her exact location, zipping up the jacket all the way up to her neck and shivering. A few minutes later, Feliks’ car pulls up, an extremely old vehicle that’s model and brand symbol had clean fallen off. 

“Thank you so much,” Erszébet gushes, getting in the back seat and stripping off her rain jacket.

“It’s no problem, I was driving past here anyway,” he says, turning around for a moment before pulling away from the alley and back onto the road. He glances into the rear view mirror as he merges onto traffic. The person in the passenger seat is probably Toris Laurinaitis, but it might not be. Whoever it is slender and small enough that nothing really distinguishing is visible from her angle in the back seat, but a quick look at the side view mirror confirms her suspicion.

“So you do not have driving license either?” Toris asks, turning his head very subtly so he can see her in his peripheral vision. 

“No, I don’t,” Erszébet replies in a friendly tone. “I’ve never gotten around to applying for the permit.”

“I have Vasovagal syncope, so I was advised to not drive,” he says pleasantly, his accent as thick as ever. He says it as conversationally as one would say that they are planning on eating lunch later, although she has no possible clue what Vaso-whata is. She wonders vaguely what his native tongue is, it’s not an accent similar to many that she has heard before. 

“You drove Feliks to the hospital,” she says, keeping the accusation out of her voice. Erszébet does not like the idea of someone with a disorder detrimental enough to restrict driving doing exactly that, and therefore endangering her closest friend.

“I didn't drive him, I just walked with him the rest of the way. And I was not diagnosed then, I did not know,” he explains, with a guilty twinge. “I would never willingly put myself in a position to hurt anyone, I promise.” As Toris turns his head, she can see a bandage on his cheek that spindles across all of his cheekbone, and a bruise near his temple. Erszébet is now positive that he is the friend Feliks mentioned having been attacked, the case he is testifying in. If he is not, Feliks has far too many accident-prone friends.

“I’m driving Toris to a doctor’s appointment,” Feliks says, “But I can like drop you off first if you’d like.”

“I can come along if it’s okay with you. I’ve finished all of my work, and I haven’t got anything to do,” Erszébet says with a shrug.

Feliks glances at Toris for a half a second, tilting his head in an indication that he should answer. “I do not mind, I have to pick up paperwork so it will be quick,” he responds kindly, smiling lightly as he brushes a strand of hair behind his ear nervously.

“I hope you don’t mind me asking, but what’s Vasa-syna-whichever? The thing you mentioned?” Erszébet asks. She thinks the question is safe, that if it were an embarrassing disorder or disease, he would not have even mentioned it or said it so casually.

“No, it’s no problem. The type of syncope that I have results in sudden fainting as result of emotional stress, pain, or sight of things that I find, um, disturbing, like blood or decaying animal.”

“Oh. So, blackouts, basically,” she surmises.

“Blackouts,” Toris confirms, twirling a shard of hair around his finger anxiously.

“What’s your major?” she asks.

His eyebrows twist in confusion. “I’m sorry, what?”

“What area of study are you focusing on?” she rephrases.

He nods in understanding. “Biochemistry, and applied mathematics. I’d like to go to medical school one day.”

“How are you going to do that if you faint around blood?” Erszébet presses him, forgetting her manners. She does that often.

Toris presses his thin lips together. “I hope to overcome it at some point.”

“Oh, I’m sure you will,” she adds hastily, embarrassed for asking such a tactless question.

“The odds are against, I am afraid,” he answers sadly, and Erszébet feels awful. Erszébet notices that both of the times she has encountered and interacted with Toris, she has said something mean to him. He must think she’s an awful person, she realizes with a sigh.

“I’m sorry for saying that,” Erszébet says quickly, even though each word stabs on her swollen pride right above her heart.

“It is no trouble,” Toris replies kindly, waving his hand dismissively as Feliks parks in front of the doctor’s office. “You guys can wait in the car if you want,” Toris offers cheerfully, getting out of the car and walking inside.

“Is he okay?” Erszébet asks. “He seems kind of tense.”

“The case,” he retorts. “Ah, cholera, I wasn’t supposed to tell you that! Forget everything!” Feliks tells her brashly.

“It’s fine, I’m not going to tell anyone,” Erszébet replies.

“Good, ‘cause Ludwig and the rest of them would totally have my head on a platter,” he admits with a sigh, leaning back in the driver’s seat and closing his eyes. A moment later, Toris returns from the medical office with a clipboard, looking rather light headed as he stumbles back into the passenger seat, eyes spinning for a moment in a disoriented fashion. Feliks turns the key in the ignition back into function, and moves the stick shift into ‘drive’.

“I don’t like that doctor’s office,” Toris whispers, maybe to himself, maybe to Feliks, maybe to no one in particular.

“Mm,” Feliks replies noncommittally, not taking his eyes off the road. Despite all of his horrible luck and occasional lapse of common sense, he is a very safe, sensible driver, and he’s never even gotten a parking ticket. Erszébet leans against the car side window, and Feliks pulls into a parking spot in front of a building she’s never seen before, a dumpy place with all sorts of creeps hovering in front of the walkway. Toris gets out of the car and sways into the steady wind and rain, thanks Feliks graciously, and leaves, not looking back as the creeps snicker at him- one even shoves him lightly against the door and yells something she can’t make out. She sees Toris clench his key between his knuckles, and he opens the door and disappears inside. 

“Poor thing,” Erszébet comments, switching seats to the passenger one.

Feliks doesn’t react except for a brief stiffening of his hands holding the steering wheel. Suddenly, a thought hits her. Feliks hadn’t asked for any directions. “You know where he lives?” she inquires curiously.

“He can’t drive now, I drive him home every day from our classes,” he explains, rolling his eyes at her suspicion.

“That’s kind of you,” she comments, and he doesn’t reply. Twenty minutes later, Feliks parks his car on one of the side streets a few blocks from their apartment; parking is always limited in central Stockholm. He gets out of the car, nearly toppling against the car as he tries to hop up onto the sidewalk. He always was a lightweight. Feliks pulls his hood over his face in an attempt to block the spray of water that stings like small pebbles. 

“Ah, long day,” Feliks comments as he steps inside the hallway that leads to stairwell, propping the door open for her with the toe of his shoe.

“Yeah?” she replies, stepping inside and shivering.

“So what was wrong with the party? Not up to your high standards? And didn’t you go with Roderich?” They aren’t even inside and the questions are already flowing, with no sign of stopping anytime soon.

“I didn’t know most of the people, and my boyfriend got drunk and started hanging all over my ex-boyfriend, but I acted kind of out of proportion,” she says with a sigh.

“Oh, that sucks. Did you know anyone there besides Roderich?”

She pauses and ticks off her fingers, “Gilbert, Matthew, Feli, Lovino, Antonio, and some med student who helps out in by bio class.”

“Kirkland?” Feliks asks.

“How’d you know?” Erszébet inquires.

He shrugs his narrow shoulders up and then down. “All of us, everyone who helps out in the underclassmen science or math classes, kind of know each other. I don’t really like him, he’s sort of cranky.”

“He was laughing when I saw him,” Erszébet declares as she unlocks the door to their apartment, stepping inside and removing the rainjacket, taking a long breath.

“Hm, maybe a computing error,” Feliks says, cracking a smile as he turns the gas burner on and picks up a match to light it, since the power is still not functioning.

“Want some tea to take the edge off?” he asks her.

Erszébet chuckles. “We’re so lame, drinking tea to take the edge off instead of alcohol,” she laughs.

“Is that a yes or a no?” he presses, brushing his shoulder-length hair back and tying it into a ponytail as he fills the kettle with water and drops it onto the burner.

“Of course, I love tea,” she retorts, collapsing onto the sofa.

“That’s what I thought,” he sniffs indignantly, possibly slightly affronted at being called ‘lame’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually have a close friend who suffers from severe Vasovagal Synacope. She's a doctor now, but she had to give herself intense therapy to be able to look at blood without fainting.


	14. Chapter 14

Erszébet is going to see her family, in New York City. She’s got time off for spring break, and it’s been a long while since she’s seen her mother, her father, or her four siblings, Nuri, Simza, Besnik, and Pali. She could use a break anyway. Feliks is coming along, because the majority of his family still lives in NYC as well, and he hasn’t seen his family in years. They got a great discount on plane tickets, and split the costs.

“Ugh, I hate packing bags,” Feliks complains, throwing things at random into a small suitcase. “Why aren’t you bringing anything?” he whines, taking off his leg brace in frustration. Feliks has still got his cast on, and he’s been fumbling continuously, even though he can still use both his hands with the way that the plaster is positioned.

“Because my parents don’t throw much away. They’ve still got my clothes from high school, and they all fit me,” she explains as she packs a very small bag with only toiletries, cell phone, and laptop.

“I wish my parents were like that. I was like in first grade and I’d draw a picture or something and they’d toss it the next day,” he says, grabbing the handle of his suitcase and checking his watch.

“Let’s go, _moja droga_ ,” Feliks declares in a sing-song voice, twisting open the door knob with his toes given that his arms are filled with the folds of his rain jacket and his suitcase and a backpack full of spring break work. Erszébet props open the door with her foot, trotting down the stairs. They’ve got a fair drive to the Stockholm Arlanda Airport, 40 or 50 kilometers, but the flights are less expensive than that of those at more central airports. The rain has finally stopped, the storm has blown over and Stockholm is recovering quickly as always. There was only minor damage, a few poles down, no electrical wires damaged. Of the places she has lived, Stockholm is one of the most resilient communities of people she has encountered, perhaps besides New York City.

“I’m taking you to apply for a license soon. You have absolutely no excuse, none at all, and I can’t drive you around all the time,” he tells her somewhat seriously as he jams the car key into the door lock, twisting it open and leaning across the car to unlock the passenger door. 

“Don’t be so bossy,” Erszébet orders him, rolling her eyes and straightening her low pigtails. She always wears simple clothes on flights, tee shirts or athletic shirts and leggings, to avoid issues at security. “And you don’t mind driving me around.”

“Whatever,” he retorts lamely, starting the car and pulling the vehicle out of the parking spot quickly to avoid getting stuck in an incoming flow of traffic after a green light.

“Are all your siblings still in NYC?” she inquires as he turns the radio up a bit to an Icelandic rock group with multi-language songs.

“Yeah, except for Ada, of course,” he says uncomfortably, referring to his currently imprisoned older sister, who nearly killed a man going home to see his two daughters while driving drunk. “Jacek and Kasper are still home though.”

“Let’s see, I think Nuri might be flitting in and out of Philadelphia, but Simza, Besnik, and Pali are still with Mami and Father. How are your parents by the way?”

“As overbearing as ever,” he sighs. “They call me at least once a week and interrogate me. Legit interrogate. They should have gotten careers in the police,” Feliks groans in exasperation.

“I love your parents, they’re so funny,” Erszébet chuckles, opening the window and resting her forearm out into the breeze. She’s been introduced to his parents on several occasions, and all times they’ve prodded at her like a scab, asking all sorts of questions and figuring out all sorts of things. All of their four children got straight A’s, all of them played the piano, and all of them learned to treat authority with reverie.

“Funny to you, maybe,” he sniffs indignantly, biting his lip. “But I don’t like being asked what on earth I’m doing with my life every day.”

“Hey, my parents aren’t exactly distant, either,” she reminds him in a chiding voice.

“Not as bad as mine,” Feliks declares, tilting his head with finality. His phone buzzes, and he digs it out of his pocket and tosses it to her. “It’s probably from them, I bet you it is.”

She glances at the screen, surprised that he even allowed her to view his phone, which he’s normally very covert about, especially text messages. “It is,” she chuckles. “They want to know if you’re bringing along a girlfriend.”

“Tell them that I do but she’s got an internship that she can’t miss,” he says with a laugh.

“I sent it,” she replies with a grin. One of their favorite activities has always been making up fictional girlfriends or friends or grades or classes to appease Feliks’ parents. His phone dings again, and Erszébet opens the text message. “They want to know what her name is.”

“What’s a super Polish name?” he inquires, changing lanes on the freeway.

Erszébet considers that. “Mieczysława,” she answers, the name of one of her neighbors in Maryland, a prideful girl with loose black curls and radiating brown eyes.

“Oh, that’s good, type that,” he giggles, a playful sparkle in his eyes. She does, and amuses herself for a few minutes by imagining their reactions. “Goodness gracious, it’s going to start raining again,” Erszébet notices as she peeks out the window, the clouds overcast in a dreary shade of dark gray, bloated with water molecules or whichever. Tino would know, she recalls, with his environmental science major and all.

“I don’t think so,” he replies. “I checked the weather forecast this morning, and I think it’s just going to be cloudy, not rainy,” he adds, glancing up through the windshield. 

“Hm,” she murmurs, flipping open her phone and opening a game. They chatter aimlessly, about people they’ve met and places they’ve been, reminiscing about high school and such. A while later, Feliks pulls into a parking spot, locking the doors manually since the car is too old for electronic anything, and motions her towards the airport terminal.

“We’ve got time, unless you have fireworks or metal bracelets,” Erszébet figures, checking her watch.

“Don’t be silly, I only wear cloth bracelets and I wouldn’t touch an explosive if you paid me,” he replies casually, holding up his left wrist as an example. Circled around his thin wrist is a plastic analog watch and a few summer-camp-style bracelets, weaved and tied of string in vibrant colors- deep blue, magenta, cyan, lime, and many others.

“What do you have against fireworks?” she inquires as they approach the automatic doors.

He fidgets uncomfortably. “I don’t like fire,” Feliks replies, and the doors slide open for their entry. Feliks squints up at the board with the outcoming and incoming flights.

“Security, then flight, then New York,” Erszébet ticks off her fingers, a comforting measure. She is a mathematician, a statistician, and numbers comfort her, soothe worries that always come with flying no matter how many time’s she’s done it. She knows the likelihood of the plane dropping suddenly is just about zero, but it’s enough to make her more than a little uncomfortably.

After getting their bags checked and scanned for whatever they scanned for these days, they board the plane. It’s not an especially large aeroplane, and they take their seats shortly before the usual spiel on safety and ‘in case of emergency’ spiel begins.

“My parents apparently organized a get together between our families, and we’re supposed to go straight to my parents’ house for dinner,” Feliks relays belatedly, several minutes after reading the text message.

“That’ll be hectic,” she laughs quietly, not wanting to disturb anyone on the plane. There are a lot of businessmen and women loaded on the plane, with their pant suits and stiff collars and blazers, and she doubts they would appreciate the interruption as the click away furtively on their fancy laptops.

“You should do your homework,” Erszébet suggests as she wrestles her unwieldy and outdated laptop onto her thighs. “You’re not going to have any time to do it otherwise.”

“I don’t have hardly any homework over break,” he comments, but he yanks a binder out, looking at the assignment in frustration- a three-page report (relatively light in terms of the stuff he’s normally working on) analysing a specific person’s contributions to chemistry. “I think I’ll do Marie Curie, it’ll be easy to find information for that,” he says, rolling his pen back and forth on his hands.

“Go for it,” she replies absentmindedly, not entirely listening as she clicks through a module that her professor instructed to have completed by the end of break.

That night, Erszébet fumbles with the straps of a dress that was perfect in high school but doesn’t exactly suite her taste well now. 

“I’m so glad that you’ve lightened your workload, Erzsébet,” her mother tells her as she stabs a gołąbki with her fork. “You seemed so stressed on the phone,” she sighs sadly, while Feliks’ parents drill him on how often he is practicing piano and if he is doing anything illegal or has gotten himself into any trouble. Her little brother Pali is now in high school, and has grown some but not much- he’s still only a little bit more than five feet tall. She ruffles his hair affectionately as he steals some steamed carrots off her plate, and he ducks and rolls his eyes, sighing in a way that is so stereotypically teenage.

“Erszébet, has Feliks been completing all of his class work?” Mrs. Łukasiewicz inquires in a way that is not devoid of suspicion.

“Of course, Mrs. Łukasiewicz,” she retorts politely.

“Hm. Well, I would like you to keep an eye on him. He’s been getting injured far too much in this past year,” she sniffs indignantly.

Erszébet is not sure what on earth she should say to that, so she puts another spoonful of whatever soup into her mouth to avoid answering. Besnik, her younger brother in his junior year of high school, leans across the table and asks, “Do you like Ljung Vass? I was considering applying for college,” he says, and their mother frowns. She not bossy or overprotective, but she was sad when Erszébet left for Stockholm, and will be even sadder is Besnik leaves- the pain of losing two children to a foreign country, with sparse phone calls and limited visits. So she treads lightly with a vague, “It’s good for some subjects. But you’d have to ask Feliks about the science department.”

Besnik turns to Feliks expectantly, who shrugs. “I like it. The anatomy teacher is absolute crap though, he’s a total jerk,” he snaps peevishly, seeming to get annoyed on the mere idea of the professor, eyebrows drawing over his eyes. Erszébet is intrigued, she’s never heard of this allegedly terrible teacher before.

“Your teacher deserves your respect, Feliks,” his father says gruffly, frowning at him disdainfully and making significant eye contact with his wife that seems to say, ‘he really doesn’t understand anything, does he?’. Erszébet has never understood them, and probably never will. Three fourths of their children are high-achieving students, studying topics like experimental physics, mathematics, and geoscience. All four play piano, all four were classically trained in things like Greek and Latin and composers, things her parents never bothered with.

Feliks’ lips curve upwards momentarily in exasperation. “I know, I know. But he is really mean,” he adds, and Besnik smiles. 

“But overall, it’s nice right?” her brother asks, like he already expects the answer.

Feliks nods. “Yeah, I like it.”

“Have you guys dissected anything cool?” Simza inquires earnestly. She’s a senior in highschool, and heading to the nearby university for pre-med, so she’s currently set on all possible information related to medicine.

Feliks’ eyes light up in amusement. “Actually, recently we-”

“Not at the table, _gdzie twoje maniery_?” his mother hisses furiously, wiping her mouth dantily on one of the napkins. He sinks back into his chair sullenly. “Stop slouching,” she orders, and he sits up straight, exaggeratedly so, clearly yearning to roll his eyes. Erszébet and her mother make eye contact. Her mother is nothing like Feliks’ mother, and for that she is thankful.

“Well, thank you for the meal,” Mrs. Héderváry says, getting to her feet and clearing her dishes, full skirt swishing as she turns back from the kitchen counter.

“Yes, much obliged,” Mr. Héderváry adds gruffly. He is of few words, but she loves him all the same. Not many fathers come to all school functions for all his kids, moving around busy scheduling to support five energetic children in all their endeavours. 

“It was no trouble,” Mrs. Łukasiewicz replies, although her tone implies that it was in fact, far too much trouble.

“Bye!” Feliks says, getting up to give her a quick hug and a cheery wave as her parents, she, Nuri, Simza, Besnik, and Pali take their leave, ducklings after a mother and father ducks. She can already hear him and his siblings being scolded before the door closes.

“That was a nice dinner,” her mom says tiredly, getting into the passenger seat and buckling her seatbelt.

“Not really,” Simza retorts, the brutal honesty of the family. While Erszébet will occasionally overstep the normal binds of social convention by saying things she doesn’t mean without thinking, she always knows where and when to draw the line.

“Whichever,” their mom replies happily. “I rented a movie at the gas station that opened up down the block.”

“Is it a documentary?” Pali asks boredly, already running his fingers through his dark hair in ennui.

“You’re more than welcome to hit the sack as soon as you brush your teeth,” she replies in a tone that is not devoid of pointedness. And that is what Pali does, as soon as their dad parks the car in the driveway and unlocks the doors with a touch of a button. Erszébet ends up in the kitchen a few minutes later, having kicked off her ‘sensible shoes’ and wrapped in an old woolen blanket. She intertwines her fingers around a bloated mug of hot chocolate, a rare treat. Her mother is perched on a chair at the other end of the table, with a narrower cup of tea.

“Are you dating anyone at the moment?” her mother asks casually.

She shakes her head uncertainly. “I’m pretty sure we broke up.”

“Roderich or Gilbert?” she replies teasingly, a girlish smile appearing on her face.

“Mom!” she shrieks, before quieting down and replying, “Roderich,” in a quiet voice.

“Ah, the gentleman. He really was very sweet, always had a crush on you. Although you shouldn’t keep leading him on if you don’t plan on enduring a long-term relationship,” she suggests, ever the wisest advice giver Erszébet has ever had the pleasure of meeting.

“I know, I know,” she murmurs. “But he got sort of drunk at a party and started hanging all over my ex-boyfriend, and so then I left down the fire escape and I’m pretty sure that was that,” she relays.

“That’s rough,” her mom replies, and Erszébet brightens a little at the understanding. Despite her friends in Stockholm, there’s no one that really understands her like her mother. Feliks is nice, but he’s often too covert to have casual conversations about relationships with. A walking contradiction he is, shy and kind of loudmouthed simultaneously. And he rarely talks about his personal life freely.

“That’s what I thought. But I could have handled the situation better,” she presumes, taking a great gulp of hot chocolate, sighing as it burns down her throat, a cleansing and delicious burn.

“Don’t beat yourself up over anything,” she instructs. “Hindsight is always 20/20, anyhow,” her mom reminds chiddingly. “I suppose,” Erszébet says. “I was having a bad week in general,” she admits, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes.

“Remember, you can call if you ever need help. It must be difficult living away from family, but at least you’ve got some friends there. Think of all the people that don’t know anyone, that came on their own,” she points out, and Erszébet knows she’s right. All in all, she’s quite fortunate that so many friends packed up to Stockholm at the same time she did, and how easy for the most part she’s found it to get along with her classmates.

“I think I’m going to bed,” Erszébet declares, finishing her hot chocolate and dropping the mug in the counter, running the water for a moment before wrapping the blanket tightly around her shoulders and collapsing onto the couch.

“I’m sure Simza won’t mind sharing,” her mom says, looking guilty at her sleeping arrangements. They’ve since moved to a smaller house since she and Nuri moved out for college, with three bedrooms instead of four. So Pali and Besnik share, and Simza usually has a room to herself- except when Nuri’s in town and then they bunk together. She doesn’t want to be a bother or wake them with her tired stumbling, so she waves her mother off. “It’s fine, I don’t mind,” she replies, voice muffled against the thin linen pillow. The room is cold, but the blanket is warm and almost right after as her mom flicks off the light with a soft, “Good night, Erzsébet,” she is out cold against the couch, jet lag finally catching up with her and snatching at her heels.

The next morning, they eat breakfast together, a lavish affair put together by none other than Pal himself, who is even at his young age an excellent chef. He’s fried eggs, has from scratch biscuits cooking in the oven, hash browns crisping on the stove, sausage links in the microwave, and at the moment he’s slicing up grapefruit with strong hands, weather-hardened from gardening and calloused from playing the guitar.

“Wow thanks, Pali,” Simza says, and he smiles in a way that is not without smugness, gesturing for everyone to take a seat at the impeccably set table. Erszébet rubs the sleep out of her eyes, feeling with surprise that a tension that has been crushing her shoulders for goodness knows how long has been lifted. Her mood is lighter, words kinder, and she feels like she did as a teenager, independent and fearless.

“You’re sweet for putting this together,” their mother says graciously in a sing-song voice as she returns from the bedroom, dressed in a purple smock dress with pantyhouse and scuffed black shoes for work. She manages x-rays, ultrasounds, and other similar equipment in the nearby hospital, a radiological technician or something.

“No problem,” he says happily, allowing her to kiss his forehead as she takes her seat. He doles out the food, and recovers the biscuits from the oven, a crispy golden brown with soft flaky insides.

“I got a job,” Nuri announces, and it is clear she has been keeping it in for a while, her voice cracks with pride.

“Goodness, sweetheart, that’s great! Doing what?” Mami inquires, and Father pats her on the shoulder gently.

“I’ve been hired as paid intern at a beauty salon,” she relays excitedly, emphasizing the word ‘paid’, although Erszébet is dubious. If she’s not mistaken Simza is an intern at a medical clinic, and she barely gets paid three dollars an hour.

Mami’s face falls. “That sketchy place up the street?” she inquires, eyebrows netting in concern across her face.

Nuri rolls her eyes. “It’s cool, it’s owned by this nice Vietnamese girl, she’s becoming a neurologist so she’s paying her way through med school. Isn’t that inspiring?” she says wistfully. Erszébet is happy that Nuri has secured a position, but does not feel it will last any longer than the others.

“Lots of dangerous people go in there,” her mother recalls worriedly. Nuri snarls and tosses her hair back from her face. “I knew you wouldn’t understand. Whatever, you don’t have to approve, I’m not your property anymore.” Erszébet nearly chokes on the grapefruit, not an easy feat considering it’s liquidy and pliable consistency. 

“Go to your room,” Father tells her in a serious voice. He may be kind, but he doesn’t tolerate childness among his adult children.

“Fine,” Nuri spits acrimoniously, shoving her chair backwards melodramatically and leaving in a huff, crossing her arms over her chest and slamming the door to Simza’s bedroom door- to which Simza shouts, “Don’t damage the doorframe any more than it already is!” Erszébet sighs. She really does like Nuri, her free spirit and lofty ideals make for interesting conversation and fun memories, but these noble ideals also make for a blockage in maturity that no one has been able to loosen. Her family finishes breakfast in relative quiet, with intermittent mumbled chattering, and Erszébet returns to the sofa to complete a French translation. Simza goes out for her medical internship, Besnik leaves to attend a soccer game that he’s refereeing, and Pali retreats to the bathroom to take a shower. The house is seemingly relaxed, but undulating tension hovers under every floorboard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah. Feliks' and Erszébet's siblings and parents don't really represent anything historical. They're just there for plot. Also, thanks so much to Maura for the better Polish translation!


	15. Chapter 15

Maybe someday she will be at peace with herself, Erszébet ponders as she steps into a small restaurant. She has invited Roderich for no reason she can possibly imagine. Maybe it is to break up with him. Maybe it is to reconcile. Nothing is for sure, and maybe that’s okay.

“Hello, Erszébet,” Roderich greets her with a pleasant nod, glancing at his wristwatch.

“Hi,” she says in response, taking a seat at the cramped table, where at least they will not be evesdropped on. She drops her bag on the floor, kicking it under the table with a well-placed foot.

“I would like to offer an apology for my behavior at the party,” he admits, voice shy and fingers fiddling in a way that is clearly an attempt to be casual but appears insecure more than anything else.

“I appreciate that,” she says, treading lightly.

“Are we ending our relationship?” he asks, blunter than she would have expected.

Erszébet shrugs. “Not right now, unless you want to,” and he shakes his head so she continues, “Let’s go to lunch tomorrow and see what happens?”

“That sounds like a good plan,” he confirms. “And I’m sorry, but my presence is required at a dentist appointment,” he says, getting up and gently sliding his briefcase over his shoulder.

“All right, thanks,” she says for no particular reason, ordering a simple coffee from the waitress, who nods and takes a quick notation in a notebook. After drinking the coffee and unfurling a few dollar bills from her wallet and leaving them on the table, she scrambles to her feet, checking the time and realizing she’s got a metro to catch. Twenty minutes later, she returns to her apartment, unlocking the door. Feliks leans against the counter, a cell phone pressed to his ear, which he immediately shuts after a quick, “Sorry, I have to go, bye.”

“Hello,” she says.

He smiles and waves. “Hey Erszi,” Feliks says in a sing-song voice tapping a pencil to his chin thoughtfully, scribbling down a notation in his binder.

“Whatcha doing?” she inquires casually, opening the refrigerator and pouring the remainder of the milk gallon into a short glass.

“Chem,” he retorts, looking exhausted. Finals, as she very well knows, are quickly approaching and much of the Ljung Vass’ student population has already started studying- especially those loaded with hard classes.

“I can’t believe break is over tomorrow,” Erszébet says in disbelief. “At least I finished all of my work on the airplane.”

“Lucky,” he complains, opening the thick chemistry textbook flippantly.

“We need to get groceries,” she observes as she opens one of the cabinets to observe shelves barren of most ingredients, besides a mostly empty sack of rice and some cornmeal.

“I can go later, I guess,” he offers, although it is clear he would prefer not to. 

“It’s fine, I’ll do it, just help me make the list,” she replies easily, she doesn’t mind grocery shopping, unfolding a slip of paper and clicking a pen into working order.

“Milk, flour, cheese, probably some tomatoes, were you going to make flaki for dinner?” He nods in response, not looking up from his studying. “Okay, so beef scraps, broth, tomato concentrate, but we have all the spices, right?” He nods again, and suggests in a tense voice, “Do we have enough for lettuce?” She does some quick arithmetic in her head- they have a set amount of money to spend per week on food, actually, everything in their apartment is set and organized, even if the organization is usually always changing.

“I think so, if the tomatoes are on sale,” Erszébet answers as she adds ‘granola maybe’ to the list in tidy print.

“Thanks,” Feliks says absentmindedly, waving as she unlocks the door and grabs her bag.

A few minutes later, she opens the door of the local supermarket, carefully grabbing items and positioning them in the shopping basket neatly, aligning the boxes and cartons with each other in a systematic fashion. After mentally checking all the items off the list, and even having enough cash in the budget spare for the lettuce and a small package of granola, which she likes to eat over yoghurt for breakfast. She checks out, and is on her way back to the apartment when she trips, on a piece of cement sticking an inch or two out of the sidewalk. She falls onto the ground, catching herself on her wrist. “Ow,” she murmurs to herself, skin on her wrist rubbing raw on the rough cement. As she gets back to her feet, smoothing her dress down with her free hand.

“Are you okay?” a rather petite girl with long yellow braids, tied with red ribbon, and plain, light eyes inquires, holding out a steadying hand with long, weathered fingers.

“Thanks, I’m fine,” she responds instantly, shaking her hand of the sting.

“I still have trouble walking in this city,” the girl comments in a friendly voice, fiddling with the folds of her ankle-length skirt. Erszébet is a little surprised at the sudden conversation, but she goes along with it and replies, “The metros are nice, though.”

“I’ve been a little nervous to take those,” she says. “I haven’t gotten used to the maps and schedules yet,” the girl adds.

Erszébet nods in understanding as she turns into her building. To her great surprise, the girl follows her. “Do you live here?”

She nods. “Yes, I just moved in about a month ago. My name’s Lili,” she says, sticking out her hand pleasantly.

“Nice to meet you, Lili. I’m Erszébet,” she says, shaking the extended hand.

Lili smiles lightly. “Do you attend Ljung Vass?” she inquires.

Erszébet grins. “Yeah, major in stats, minor in French.”

“Me as well,” she says politely. “Although I’m majoring in philosophy, and minoring in German.”

“That’s a cool combo,” she observes gently, indicating to hers and Feliks’ door. “Thanks, see you around,” she adds, giving a quick wave.

“Good-bye,” Lili says, turning and walking a few doors down, and opening the door quietly, disappearing inside with a spring in her step. Erszébet is pleased, there aren’t very many people living in their apartment building, and most of them are businesspeople who only live within for a few months before packing up and leaving, without a word to any of the other residents during their stay. It’d be nice to have a person about her age in the building, since the only person who she’s acquainted with within the premises is Feliks, and he really can be impossible to converse with sometimes. Lili, she repeats to herself as she says hi to Feliks, hoping to remember the name as she stacks the groceries into fridge and cupboards.

“I have an anatomy test tomorrow,” Feliks groans, flipping through notes packed with fancy cursive at such a quick pace that she seriously doubts that he is actually reading them.

Erszébet smiles weakly. “You’ll be fine,” she says.

“You don’t know that!” Feliks shrieks.

Erszébet sighs and resists the urge to roll her eyes. He always does so well on these tests, yet every single time one is approaching, he freaks. “You’re right, I don’t. Why don’t you find someone in your class and go study with them?” she suggests, trying to mollify his ranting.

“Do you think that will help?” Feliks asks.

Erszébet raises her eyebrows. “You study with other people all the time. Are you okay?” she queries and presses the the back of her hand to his forehead. It feels warm. “Do you have a temperature?”

“No, I’m fine,” he retorts, picking up his textbook and notebook.

Erszébet is dubious, but she decides to go along with it.

“Do you mind if I invite Tino over?” Feliks asks. “He’s took the class last year, and he got an A,” he relays, fumbling with his sling in frustration. He scribbles something on a diagram.

“He probably doesn’t remember anything, he said he hated that class,” Erszébet retorts.

“Don’t you know anyone in your class?” she inquires.

He shrugs ambiguously. “Yeah, I guess so,” he murmurs, opening his phone with a certain peevishness and dialing a number with his thumb.

“I’m going over to talk to Lili and then I’m going to class, so feel free to invite whoever over here instead of trekking out,” she lets him know, gesturing her head towards the door.

“Kay,” Feliks replies, waving her away while he types something into the keypad of his phone. She wishes him luck with the test, and leaves, knocking once or twice on the solid oak door, smiling at the flowery script that pleasantly warns solicitors to take their goods elsewhere. After a moment, Lili cracks open the door and peeks through suspiciously, before recognizing her and opening it. Her hair is tied back in a white patterned bandana. She’s clad in a fitted white tee shirt and overalls flecked with paint and grout.

“Hello, Erszébet,” Lili greets her. “Come in, I just made a coffee cake.”

“Thanks, I’ve got to go to class in a few minutes, I thought I’d stop by,” she responds, stepping inside and sliding her sandals off on the rug to avoid tracking in mud. Lili’s floor is clearly in the process of being re-finished, she’s laying tiles, and the ones that are already been placed in are neatly spaced with gray grout.

“Excuse the mess, I found these tiles at a thrift store on clearance and I thought I’d pretty the place up a bit,” she observes, stepping over a pail of light green paint and leading her over to the kitchen.

“No, it’s no problem, sorry for stopping by without warning,” she answers, a little uncomfortable with the stiff politeness of it all. But she wants to tread as lightly as she can, she doesn’t have any female friends around and she’d really appreciate one. Despite how cliche it sounds, there honestly are some things that males just can’t understand.

“It’s completely fine, I don’t mind visitors as long as they don’t bite,” she replies light-heartedly with a gentle laugh. “Have some cake,” she adds, cutting a neat slice and serving it on a small plate.

“Wow, great,” Erszébet thanks her, stabbing a piece of the moist cake with the fork and chewing it carefully. She’s not normally a huge fan of coffee cake, and even when it’s as well-flavored and deliciously crumbly as this, it’s still not something she especially enjoys, but she enjoys it for the sake of being neighborly.

“What class do you have next?” Lili inquires curiously as she pours herself a cup of coffee.

“Advanced Probability Theory I,” she declares. “It’s not too bad,” she adds, “Despite the terrible-sounding name.”

“That sounds fascinating,” Lili comments, finishing a small gulp of coffee.

Erszébet raises an eyebrow in surprise. “It is, I like it, the teacher’s cool,” she agrees pleasantly, slinging her backpack over her shoulder. “Thanks, see you,” she utters, leaving through the front door after restrapping her sandals back onto her bare feet.

“No problem, feel free to come by whenever,” Lili says casually, dropping her empty mug in the sink and running the water, before turning back just as Erszébet is about to turn around, grinning and waving good-bye.

After class, Erszébet returns to the apartment, wrestling the door open while trying to juggle her open laptop that she can’t shut while it’s downloading the data and her book bag that’s exploding at the seams with too many textbooks and too many notebooks.

“Hey Feliks,” Erszébet greets him; he appears to be cooking something at the stove. “Hey Toris,” she adds after noticing him sitting at the kitchen counter, holding a chart up to the light like he’s trying to analyse for something.

“How’s the studying going?” she inquires, carefully setting her running laptop on one of the couch cushions clumsily, dropping her backpack on the ground in the process.

“Fine, I guess,” Feliks grumbles. “We’re leaving for the test in an hour,” he adds.

“More like forty five minutes,” Toris corrects, glancing at the watch.

Erszébet nods, wandering over to the kitchen to pour a glass of water for herself from the pitcher by the fridge. “So, what’s the topic?”

“All bones in the human body, nerve names and functions, muscle names and function, and the functions of internal organs,” Toris reads off a piece of paper, laughing nervously, swinging his legs on the stool.

“That sounds miserable,” she comments, leaning against the wall in a carefree sort of way.

“He only told us about it yesterday,” Feliks groans. “By email! What about people that don’t have emails?” he snaps acrimoniously.

“I think you needed an email to register for the university,” Toris reminds him mildly. Feliks makes a face at that, smacking open his textbook with more force than necessary. “Cranial IX?” he asks Toris.

“Accesory nerves?” he replies uncertainly, twisting a lock of hair around his index finger.

“Try again,” Feliks retorts. “That’s XI.”

“Glossopharyngeal Nerves,” Toris replies, more confidently. “I always mix those up. Anyway,” he continues. “Cranial IV?”

“Trochlear,” Feliks replies without a second thought.

“Describe its position,” Toris presses.

Feliks perches on the stool next to Toris. “Umm, innervates through the superior oblique of the eye muscle?”

“How is it unique?” he quizes him, shuffling an index card in front of his face.

“It has the smallest number of axons, and it has the longest intercranial length,” Feliks replies, closing his eyes thoughtfully as he tries to recall anything else. Erszébet quickly grows bored with the back-and-forth question and answer, as it gets more and more technical, down to complicated brain chemical terms that she has never heard of before. 

"Which bone is this?" Feliks asks, holding up his wrist and running his index finger along a prominent bone in his arm, since he's left his diagram on the counter by the stove.

"Ulna," he answers immediately. "Pick a harder one," Toris requests pleasantly. 

Feliks tilts his head thoughtfully, and raises his head, indicating to an area in the area around his wrist and back of his forearm. "Name it," he orders.

Toris leans forward against the counter, picking up Feliks' wrist and gesturing for a more specific location. When he complies, Toris answers slowly, uncertainly, "Extensor pollicis- what's the rest?"

"Brevis," he finishes.

Finally, long after she has retreated to the couch and plugged in her headphones of a youtube playlist featuring music that she enjoys, Toris and Feliks leave in a state of nervous chatter and mild panic for their test. Erszébet hopes they do well. She doesn't want to hear Feliks whining and freaking out for weeks afterward.

“Thank goodness,” she breathes to herself, shutting her laptop and getting up. There’s only so much mumbo jumbo medical and anatomy terms that one can take. After stretching her arms above her head, she grabs her briefcase and sets out to finish her probability theory homework.


	16. Chapter 16

Her and Lili quickly become close friends, which is good for several reasons. Firstly, she has a secure outlet to vent a little if necessary. Secondly, Feliks has been pretty much MIA since the anatomy test. But most importantly, she likes having friends, likes having someone to talk to. Lili laughs politely at all the right moments and shares her own experiences expertly in a certain fluency, all the while on their hands and knees painstakingly tiling a floor, which Erszébet has volunteered to help with. She is also an excellent advice giver.

“So,” Lili begins, smacking her hands of the dust that has collected on them after cutting the tiles to fit against the wall. “This is kind of random, but I was wondering if you would come to an award ceremony with me tonight.” The look in her eyes is pleading.

Erszébet smiles affectionately. “What are you getting awarded for?” 

“Well, it’s not me really, it’s my step-brother. He’s getting recognized for some sort of achievement thing. I don’t even know, but I have to come and it’s supposed to be rather boring,” she explains quickly, rinsing off the remaining grime on her fingers and palms in the sink.

“Um,” Erszébet says, trying to list her schedule systematically, looking for any conflicts of timing. “I’m sorry, I’ve got a cram session for French with my classmates, we have early finals,” she replies apologetically, not that she is yearning to attend a long and drawn out ceremony about some unknown honor about some unknown person.

Lili sighs, but brightens quickly. “All right. At least my step-brother will be there,” she replies softly. She smacks the cleaned paint brush lightly in her hand thoughtfully a few times. “Thanks for helping me clean this place up, it would have taken me forever. Did you and that blond boy have to refinish stuff when you first moved in?” she inquires earnestly.

Erszébet laughs. “I moved in a year before Feliks did, and all I did was clean out the cabinets with some disinfectant. When he moved in, he painted a few rooms and cleaned between the floorboards with cotton swabs.”

“Wow, that’s a teensy bit obsessive,” she says, mouth forming into a small ‘o’. “I don’t mean to be rude, but who is he?”

“Longtime friend, roommate, yadda yadda,” she says, having thought she had already explained who Feliks was. It must have slipped her mind while she was relaying the past couple years of a nasty love triangle that had twisted all sorts of direction in every possible way.

“By the way, you should join the linguistic study group. It’s a club of native speakers and students of various languages helping people improve and study for exams,” Erszébet suggests. “Don’t you speak German?”

Lili nods. “I could try it, would you mind sending me the info for the next meeting?” she requests.

“Sure, no problem,” Erszébet says, heaving her bag over her shoulders. She actually just joined, and she’s helping tutor some SSL and ESL students. Tino has been in it for a long period of time, and she thinks that he mentioned that Antonio and Lovino are in it as well. It meets in the student cafeteria on certain days, offering free lessons to whoever needs them. As she takes her leave, Lili reminds her to stop by later and the hot air of the hallway hits her like a wall as soon as she steps outside. The corridor air conditioning broke sometime over the weekend, and it has yet to be repaired. Fanning herself with a booklet about campus safety that she hasn’t even opened, Erszébet skips the last two steps and views the sidewalk, turning left and walking a few blocks. The student cafeteria was intended originally to be the most central spot on campus, but since the campus expanded in the wrong direction, it’s now on the outskirts and rarely used. Additionally, it’s a little run-down: the paint is peeling, the roof is weathered, and the doors don’t quite sit in their frames.

“Sorry I’m late,” Erszébet tells Tino, dropping her bag on the table after scurrying over from the other side of the campus, due to the inconvenient location of her advanced probability class.

“It’s fine,” he says easily. “Let’s see, well since the university recently put us in charge of assessing incoming college freshmen next year, you’ll be talking to various people as assessing their language skills in both Swedish and English.”

“Am I qualified to do that?” she inquires, raising an eyebrow. It seems a little unusual that the college had put such a large decision into the hands of a random little club with only a few members that rarely stayed on-topic. Swedish isn’t even her first language (although she is fluent in it now), how on earth does she have the prerequisites to decide which entry level of English and Swedish a person should enter at?

Tino shrugs. “Your guess is as good as mine,” he replies.

“All right,” she says cheerfully, “Would you get me the paperwork or whichever?” she requests, not really sure what materials were necessary to conduct a language examination. Lovino would probably know though, she thinks as she takes the clipboard from Tino bewilderedly, since he’s majoring in linguistics and all. She is just about to turn to look out the names when a loud voice yells, “Hey Erszébet!” someone shouts.

“Hello?” she murmurs in confusion, turning a few directions and raising her eyebrows. Erszébet feels the whisper light touch of fingertips on her left shoulder blade, and she whirls backwards. No one’s there, and loud snickers quickly erupt from the person on her other side. While she would really like to stamp her foot in frustration (he’s been pulling that prank on her since they were small and boy has it gotten old), she smiles sarcastically. “Hello, Gilbert, what brings you to this little gathering?”

“Tino asked me to help with a few German students!” he retorts, eyes twinkling in amusement. She turns to Tino accusingly, and he shrugs nonchalantly. 

“We needed someone who spoke German,” Tino explains.

“You could have asked Ludwig,” she reminds him in exasperation. “Or one of the other million people in Stockholm who speak German.”

“It might serve you well to mature before you graduate from college,” Tino suggests sweetly with an air of indignation, an unusual aura for him to radiate, and he leaves the conversation to talk with Antonio and Lovino. Erszébet shuffles her feet in shame, pretending to inspect the buckles on her sandals. In annoyance she realizes that Gilbert’s mere aura holds some type of power over her personality, and while it’s clear that it’s not intentional, she can’t say that she likes it.

“So, who are you testing today?” he asks playfully, crossing his arms over his chest and taking the clipboard out of her hands.

“A Namibian, a Guatemalan, and a German,” she relays from the paperwork regretfully.

“Looks like you need my help,” Gilbert declares.

Erszébet makes an over-exaggerated gagging sound, and places her hands squarely on her hips. “Only for one of them,” she concedes.

“Two, actually. The Namibian kid might speak German,” he says wisely.

She snorts. “Namibia is in Southern Africa. He probably speaks Afrikaans or English or some regional language,” she reminds him.

“It’s called imperialism, sweetheart,” Gilbert replies, and Erszébet stiffens, not sure how to react. “Although there is English, Afrikaans, and regional languages as well,” he admits.

“Looks like we’ll just have to wait and see,” she says with a sigh.

Gilbert is right, the young man, whose name is Jonathan, speaks German primarily. His English is actually pretty good though; he speaks slowly, carefully, and clearly enunciates each syllable. His Swedish on the other hand, is shaky, filled mostly with memorized phrases and responses.

“So, Jonathan, how long have you been in Sweden?” she inquires, making a notation that compliments him on his use of complex grammatical structure and advanced vocabulary.

“About a week,” Jonathan replies. 

Gilbert says something to him in German, and Jonathan raises an eyebrow. “Where are you from?”

Gilbert looks surprised at the question, but replies, “Brandenburg.”

“Hm. That’s west of Berlin, correct?”

Looking even more surprised, he confirms that, yes, Brandenburg (wherever that is) is about 50 kilometers west of Berlin. Erszébet gives him a high score in English and a relatively low one in Swedish, because she doesn’t have the heart to put down that he doesn’t know any spontaneous Swedish. She is sure that with his intellect, he will find a way to learn it more fluently before the next school year starts. After finishing giving the young woman from Guatemala excellent results in both subjects with Antonio, since he’s fluent in Spanish, she turns back to Gilbert reluctantly, who grins at her cockily as he pulls out a chair for her and smiles at the German kid, who looks barely fifteen. His hair is dark, almost black, and his eyes are piercing ebony. When he starts to speak in his native tongue, as he has been instructed to for analysis on the audio recording they are required to take, Erszébet is acutely aware that whatever he is speaking in, it certainly isn’t German. It’s all of the throat but none of the gagging and ‘sch’. She turns to Gilbert in confusion, who shrugs in complete bewilderment. He leans into her ear discretley and whispers, “What is he saying?”

“Do you speak German?” she asks in confusion, fumbling through files and trying to figure out what on earth is going on here. He raises his eyebrows in mystification, clearly not understanding a word she says. She repeats her question in Swedish, and he doesn’t seem to comprehend any clearer. “Are we sure this is the right kid?”

Erszébet looks down at the clipboard, and scans the print for ‘name’. Finally, she finds it in a small box, embedded with other useless information. Ambróz Mikolajczyk. Now, she is so confused, and she fumbles through the paperwork in shock as he keeps speaking, words incomprehensible to her, but strangely familiar sounding. 

“Is he speaking Polish?” Gilbert asks, clearly guessing, but she finds herself in agreement, it sounds a lot like the brief and rapid-fire conversations Feliks has on the phone with his parents or a sibling every now and then. Finally, she locates Ambróz’s personal information page, and sees: NATIVE LANGUAGE: UPPER SORBIAN ALSO HAS BEEN TAUGHT: CZECH/SLOVAK, RUSSIAN (TO A LESSER EXTENT)

“Do you speak Sorbian?” she hisses.

“Why on earth would I speak Sorbian?” he asks her with a smirk, seeming to find amusement in her panic. “I’ve barely even heard of it,” he adds helpfully.

“Who would speak Sorbian?” Erszébet presses. 

“I dunno, but it’s sort of like Czech, Polish, those kind of languages. What are they called? Slavic? Slovic?” She doesn’t even bother to answer his question, running her fingers through her hair nervously, ordering him to keep Ambróz calm and happy while she talks to Tino.

“Why did you assign me someone who speaks Serbian?” she queries him, not having an earthly idea as to why she would be assigned someone who she could not communicate with in any way.

“Sorbian,” Tino corrects pleasantly.

Erszébet sighs. “Well, I can’t help with Sorbian, so could you find someone who speaks it?”

“Call Feliks,” Tino suggests, seemingly unperturbed, but Erszébet is taking this a lot more seriously. She doesn’t want to screw up and make someone get put in the wrong class and possibly ruin their whole freshman year course schedule. She feels terribly bad for the poor kid, probably terribly confused and wondering why some strange college kids were trying to talk to him in languages he didn’t understand.

“He’s taking an anatomy test,” Erszébet replies.

“Oh. Well, I speak a little Russian,” he concedes, walking over to the table, offering a friendly smile, and speaking in an equally throaty language for a few moments. Ambróz smiles politely, and says in flawless English, “Oh, sorry, I thought you guys were just testing me,” he explains, and Erszébet lets out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

“Do you also speak Swedish?” Gilbert asks boredly, rolling a pen back and forth between his palms.

“ _Ja. Flytande_ ,” he replies so easily, and releases a long stream of monologue that’s clearly very spontaneous, commenting on everything from the color of the room to his opinion of Gilbert being albino, which he puffs out out an annoyed laugh at.

“Well, that wasn’t too bad,” Gilbert remarks as he leads her into a cafe, pointing lazily at a table while he buys them coffees. She doesn’t even realize that she’s letting him buy her food and drink with her in public until he’s walking over, dropping the coffees on the table and shaking his hands of the momentary burn.

“Thanks,” she squeaks, and curses herself. She is not a child, no longer even qualified to be a blushing schoolgirl (not that she ever really was one). Erszébet is a strong individual, she should not be ‘squeaking’ at people. Her voice should not waver, she decides, but when she continues it just sounds fake and forced, “That club is so strange.”

He shrugs noncommittally. “It’s easy community service,” he says.

“Since when do you need community service? You dropped out of college,” Erszébet reminds him, and she can’t keep the accusation out of her voice. She decides it would be much easier if she just started using semaphore, and then she wouldn’t have to fret so much about the way her cadence and caesura floated and intermingled together.

Gilbert gives her a dark look that’s furrowed under thick eyebrows. “Just because I don’t want to deal with the crazy lifestyle you people here do with the late night studying and busy work doesn’t mean I’m not going to college. I’m taking classes at the community center.”

“What degree are you after?” she asks guiltily, feeling rather bad for assuming. 

“Being awesome,” Gilbert tells her, making a jibe at how he was in high school, constantly claiming how awesome he was. He rolls his eyes, and does not provide a serious, actual answer to her question. Erszébet cannot say that she blames him. She has never been easy on him, and most likely never will be, but she wishes that she could be less cruel. The filter that normally works decently between her brain and her mouth is at least 50% less effective around him.

“That’s nice,” she says absentmindedly as she finishes the first half of her coffee and swirls the residual whipped cream to homogenize it, she doesn’t like unexpected flavors in her food or drink.

“You bet it is,” he retorts, finishing his drink, pushing the chair under the table with a little more force than necessary, and tossing his empty drink container into the trash. “See you next meeting, Erszi,” Gilbert tells her with a grin, and the door dings as he leaves.


	17. Chapter 17

“The test was terrible,” Feliks relays, dropping his bag on the floor and kicking it against into one of the cubbies. “The print was like way too small and I got a migraine trying to read the stupid thing,” he huffs angrily, crossing his arms. “So, how was your language meeting thingy?” he asks after a brief silence.

Erszébet shrugs. “We could have used you there,” she declares.

“Why?” he inquires.

“We had a Sorbian-speaker, although he did end up speaking English and Swedish perfectly after a brief misunderstanding,” Erszébet explains.

“Oh. Upper or lower?”

“He didn’t specify,” she replies with a sigh as she packs up her backpack for tomorrow, a habit she is trying to acquire so she won’t always be rushing around in the morning running only on sleep deprivation and coffee.

“So did the professor post the grades yet?”

He shakes his head. “Nope, I just checked. I think I at least passed though, but I think I might have mixed up some of the nerves in the arm...” he trails off, mouth pinched in concentration, clearly trying to recall the answers he wrote and didn’t write.

“I’m going out to dinner and some sort of music thing so I won’t be back till late, so you might want to find something to do,” she suggests as she opens her day planner, a surprisingly helpful tool that has dramatically reduced the amount of homework and tests the forgets to do and study for.

“Already done, I’m going to the science building to set up a lab for a big project,” he replies easily. 

“Ah. I’m so glad I’m not in biochem. What’s it on?” she queries with a sigh as she dallops a spoonful of sour cream on the leftover borscht.

“Purification and characterization of parvalbumin protein,” Feliks reads off the sheet, rolling his eyes in annoyance. “Fish are gross,” he adds, wrinkling his nose. Erszébet decides to presume that fish are involved in the lab, rather than to presume he’s finally going crazy enough to think that a transition between labs and fish is perfectly normal in casual conversation.

“I don’t mind them,” she says, testing the temperature of the borscht with her index finger. “Ouch!” she exclaims, withdrawing it from the soup and sucking on the burn while she moves to the sink to run water over it.

“I told you we should get a microwave,” Feliks chides her, crossing his arms and looking not at all concerned about the state of her finger, which she supposes isn’t too bad. It’s superficial, but goodness does it hurt. Erszébet hates terrible burns (not that this one is) with a certain passion, she’d rather get a broken bone any day.

“Whichever,” she murmurs absently, not recalling all the details of her rant about why they shouldn’t get a microwave enough to launch into it at the moment.

“I’m going to go get some gauze, don’t let the toast burn, okay?” she reminds him, wincing.

“Yeah, sure,” Feliks replies, clearly not paying attention, so she repeats it and he rolls his eyes dismissively.

“I heard you the first time,” he tells her, irked.

“Although you weren’t listening,” Erszébet counters as she leaves to rummage through the drawers of the nearest bathroom, hers, which is where they keep the medical supplies, albeit limited. Really, all they’ve got is a package of band-aids, some ointment for cuts and abrasions, and wrappings. She hums a song to herself as she wraps the injury, it honestly isn’t severe, but she knows from experience that it’s much better to be safe than sorry when it comes to keeping wounds clean. Erszébet returns to kitchen, sashaying and enjoying the way her feet slide on the slippery floor.

“You’re happy today,” Feliks remarks. 

“Why shouldn’t I be?” she queries, smiling and grabbing a spoon for her soup.

He shrugs. “I dunno,” he replies as he shoves textbooks into his backpack.

“I do have a test today, but the class is really easy so I’m not worried,” Erszébet declares.

“I wish I had easy classes,” Feliks sighs wistfully.

“Oh please, you’re a freshman. Wait till you’re a junior, you’ll see how difficult stuff can get,” she laughs cheerfully, dropping the empty soup bowl in the sink.

“Hmph,” he mutters, crossing his arms over his chest. After a few minutes of comfortable silence, Feliks adds in a less perturbed voice, “Tino told me to tell you to come the cafeteria to interpret for a Hungarian girl in cafeteria.”

“Oh, cool. I’ll bring Lili along, she said she wouldn’t mind checking it out.” She raises an eyebrow at him. “And what is your legitimate reason for not helping out with Polish?”

He snorts at her. “It’s about as legit as your excuse for not getting a microwave.”

“It’s not even that much work,” she chides.

“People will make fun of me,” he blurts in a rushed voice. 

She is taken aback. He never fails to say things at times that makes her feel as if she doesn’t know him at all. “What?”

“Because I speak Polish wrong,” he murmurs, looking self-concious as he shifts his weight back and forth.

“But you’re a native speaker,” she protests. “You lived in Poland.”

“No, I didn’t,” he retorts just as quickly, the syllables homogenizing together into a single word.

“Where did you live?” she queries him curiously, finally realizing that she’s always just assumed that he hailed from Poland, since he is Polish, but he’s never actually said flat out where he moved from when he first came to the United States.

“It’s not important. I’m just saying that like people will think I’m weird cause I speak it _zaciąganie z ruska_. Erszébet doesn’t know what on earth that means, so she decides to nod sympathetically and say that she doesn’t think anyone will tease him, especially if he’s trying to help someone out. 

“Whatever, Erszi,” he says, and she is barely able to stop from recoiling. The sheer seriousness of the snap makes her more than a little annoyed with him, and she comes to the conclusion that it would be best to leave now before they delve into the argument threatening just below the surface.

“I’m going to see Tino about a project,” she tells him, even though she, Tino, and Kiku already finished and turned it in.

“Sure,” he waves her off, and Erszébet does exactly that, closing the door with perhaps a little more force than necessary.

She ends up going to Tino’s house anyways, because she hasn’t seen him in a while and his nearly always pleasant conversation and affection but no nonsense.

“Come on in, Erszi,” Tino welcomes cheerfully.

“Thanks,” she replies stepping inside and nodding politely at Berwald, who is sprawled neatly on the couch with a notebook and a weather chart propped on his knees.

“Eduard is here!” Tino exclaims, indicating a young blond man sitting at one of the chairs. Eduard, she thinks to herself, trying to recall the connexion.

“Hello, my name is Eduard von Bock, I am Tino’s friend from Estonia,” he says and gets to his feet. Erszébet notes how similar their respective accents are, and remembers that both Estonian and Finnish are from the Uralic language family, as is Hungarian. “Pleased to meet you,” she replies, shaking his extended hand.

“You as well. You are in college?” he asks.

“Yes, a junior,” she answers simply, shifting back and forth in her heels. Tino looks brighter than she has seen him a long period of time; eyes aglow and a geniune smile drawn across his face.

“I’m a senior in high school, 17,” he says weakly, and Erszébet is surprised. Tino’s a sophomore in college, and she vaguely wonders how on earth they became so close with a three year age gap. Perhaps they were neighbors, or childhood playmates.

“Do you live in Talinn?” she queries, since it’s really the only city she knows of in Estonia.

“Sort of,” he replies uncomfortably, and Erszébet backtracks off as quickly as she can, not wanting to circle a tense area. She has learned many things while spending time with such refined company as Lili and Roderich, one of them being to stop asking questions when a person shows hints of uneasiness. She has taught them many things too, like how to avoid getting mugged in New York City and where to keep your money so it doesn’t get stolen.

“Ah, so how has your programming project?” Tino asks.

Eduard cracks a smile. “I’ve been given the first place prize for both computer code and web design, I’m still waiting on the final results,” he explains, gesturing to his computer.

“Oh, that’s great! I’m so happy for you!” Tino exclaims, stepping forward and giving him a quick hug. Out of the corner of her eye, Erszébet catches Berwald’s eyebrows shift upwards into his brow. She can see jealousy in his eyes. She has always wondered why Tino agreed to go out with Berwald, agreed to live with him, goodness knows what else. Erszébet rarely sees them being outwardly affectionate to each other, and Tino busies himself so much with volunteer work and Berwald has such a hectic schedule that she doubts they even see each other some days. She’s never understood Berwald, although she supposes he’s the strong and silent type. There’s some bad blood between him and Feliks, although it seems to have resolved itself in recent years. Erszébet settles down in a kitchen chair as Eduard recounts his recent life events to Tino and her, asking polite questions every now and then to make her feel included. But he doesn’t have to worry. Tino’s friends are, for the most part, her friends, and so far Eduard seems quite nice, and smart from the sounds of it.

“So, have you seen Raivis recently? I haven’t heard from him,” Tino relays.

Eduard visibly stiffens, his relaxed and conversational stance hardening and eyes suddenly dulling greatly, she can no longer see the sparkle, no longer can see the emotion behind his words. “I see him sometimes,” he replies vaguely, running his fingers through his straight blond hair in a great state of nervousness. Tino seems to pick up on his discomfort, and instead begins asking about the weather in Estonia, which is boring but Eduard calms immediately. The name Raivis sounds so familiar, yet she cannot place exactly where she has heard it. Toris, maybe? Tino?

“Ah, I have heard that Toris has come to Stockholm,” Eduard remarks.

Tino nods. “He has, but I barely see him, we don’t have any classes together.”

“Do you know if he’s been well? He was rather, um, unwell when I last saw him,” he replies tentatively, all politically correct and using general terms that could mean anything, or nothing.

“He seems fine to me,” Erszébet comments. “Kind of shy, maybe.” She does not mention her suspicions that he has been beaten by the gang member in the case Feliks is involved in.

“Do you know him?” Eduard inquires in confusion, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose with a well placed push. “Kind of. He and Feliks have a lot of classes together.”

“Wait- what? What’s Feliks’ surname?”

Surprised at the sudden increase in interest, Erszébet answers slowly in a valiant attempt to pronounce all the constants correctly, “Łukasiewicz.”

“Oh goodness. Toris didn’t mention anything- I know he would have,” Eduard seems to be muttering to himself now, barely aware of her and Tino’s presence.

“Is everything all right?” Tino asks with a concerned frown.

Eduard laughs it off, in a very similar fashion that he did with the mention of Raivis, calm, collected, but a presence of some emotion, some other feeling creeping under his words. “It’s nothing, I’m just surprised. If we’re talking about the same person, Feliks lived in Kaliningrad with me, Toris, and everyone else for about a year. They didn’t get along very well usually,” he adds weakly. The words are quiet, but Erszébet knows, even from such a brief encounter with this person, that when he says ‘not well’, he means ‘they hated each other beyond imaginable belief’.

“Hm, that’s strange, I think I would have noticed something. Maybe they don’t recognize each other?” Erszébet observes, trying to recall any unusual references or behavior in the limited times she’s seen them interact. She doesn’t.

“That’s possible, it was a while ago,” Eduard replies nonchalantly, shrugging easily and seeming to cheer as the conversation drifts away from whichever happened in Kaliningrad. It seems to be a touchy subject. About ten minutes later, Erszébet’s phone buzzes feverishly, informing her that she’s got to pick up Lili and help Tino translate for the language club. A moment later, she gets a text from Lili saying tht she can’t make it to the brief meeting. She’s a little disappointed, but not devestated or anything.

“Let’s go, Tino,” she tells him, getting to her feet and smoothing the patterned dress that her grandmother sent her, that she likes despite herself.

“Oh, right,” he remembers. “Will you please come along? We always love new faces in the ULC!” he says happily.

“What’s the ULC?” Eduard asks blankly.

“United Language Club. We help out with English and Swedish assessments for the college for foreigners, and we run a volunteer translator database,” Tino explains as he waves bye to Berwald, who nods, and they open the door and exit the apartment building, an old, cracked brick number with doors and window frames that have been painted over a few too many times.

“That’s interesting,” Eduard remarks.

“It won’t take too long, we’re just working with one person,” Tino tells him.

Eduard shrugs. “Do you mind if I go find Toris? I haven’t seen him in a while and it’s be nice to catch up for a bit.”

Tino looks dejected for only a fraction for only a fraction of a second, before replying quickly, “Sure! No problem!”

“Thanks,” he murmurs as he turns and walks the other way down the sidewalk, opening his phone, probably to text or call and figure out where he is.

“How do you know him?” Erszébet asks conversationally as she opens the door for him.

After thanking her, he responds, “I lived in Kaliningrad for a little bit.”

“Did everyone live in Kaliningrad but me?” she retorts with a sigh as she takes a clipboard with an assessment off the wall.

“I guess it is a fair coincidence,” he considers. “Me, Eduard, Gilbert, Raivis, Toris, Feliks, Berwald, but I was only there for an exchange program, Eduard and I were pen pals for a few years before that though.”

“Hm, unusual,” she comments, before locating the girl from Hungary and beginning to speak in Hungarian. The girl responds in a lovely voice with flawless case, conjugation, and pronunciation. Later, they find she is almost as equally well-versed in English, Swedish, and Romanian.

“I’ll call Eduard,” Tino volunteers, opening his phone.

“I’ve got to go to Roderich’s music thing,” she says, not exactly sure if she’s looking forward to it or not. Eventually, she decides she is. She loves music, and Roderich is an excellent musician (both in piano and violin), and he loves it more than pretty much anything. It’s always been his passion, and even when he broke his hand- he struggled for the month it was casted and attempted to hold a violin and clunk out keys on the piano.

“Have fun!” Tino wishes her well as he scrolls through the contacts on his phone for Eduard’s name.

“I will!” Erszébet promises, waving bye and turning on her heel in the direction of the music center.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay for the Uralic language trio! (is that a thing?) The reference to Toris and Feliks not getting along is referencing the fact that for much of their history, despite the commonwealth and such, they didn't. Even today there's some tension.


	18. Chapter 18

Erszébet is thus far thoroughly enjoying the music thing, although she fidgets in her seats frequently and sort of wishes there was a powerpoint of pretty pictures on a projector to go along with the beautiful music. She actually can’t see Roderich, because of the angle, but the collective melding of violins, cellos, flutes, clarinets, French horns, and and a few others she can’t name twists together in long, elongated strands of music that pause but never break, dancing and glistening in the wind like dew-covered spider strings. Erszébet was never one for music, never one for spending hours upon hours on a bench trying to get her fingers on the right keys or strings or levers. But she has always loved listening to the sounds that other people can make, even if she doesn’t care to make it herself. Not many people can appreciate things that they can’t do. But she can, and thanks God for it whenever she prays, which isn’t especially often. Soon, the performance draws to a close, and Erszébet stands immediately to stretch her legs. Years of soccer, cartwheels, and martial arts have worn hard on her knees, and sitting for an extended period is quite uncomfortable. She loses sight of the musicians in the crowd, and after at least ten minutes of trying in vain to elbow her way through, she resigns (something she only does in very special cases) and leans against a relatively clear wall. Roderich will come out eventually, looking for her. He did invite her to the performance or whatever it’s called, anyhow.

Twenty minutes later, “Hello, Erszébet,” Roderich says. Random strands of hair are slicked to his face with sweat, which she supposes are from the blinding bright lights of stage. He looks almost out of breath, violin case in his hands delicately and glancing suspiciously at passerby in the room, as if they might bump into him and splinter his precious violin.

“Would you like to go out for dinner?” Erszébet asks him.

“Isn’t it a bit early for that?” he counters as he glances at his watch.

Erszébet shrugs. “Why not? It won’t be as crowded.”

“I suppose a meal wouldn’t be out of order,” Roderich surmises as he grasps the handle of his violin tighter. “But I’d like to drop this off,” he says, raising the bag a fraction of a centimeter in indication. “Somewhere safe,” he finishes.

“Of course. Would you meet me at,” she pauses and taps her chin thoughtfully, while she comes up with a good restaurant, not too fancy and not too sloppy. “Um, how about that little soup and salad shop by Feliks and mine’s apartment.”

“I haven’t been there,” Roderich admits with a careful shrug.

Her jaw drops in surprise. “Really? I lived off of that place before I figured out I could cook well if I actually followed the recipe.”

He chuckles briefly at that, a short puff of exhaled air. “Following directions is always helpful.”

“Not always. Sometimes following directions is what sets people on cable cars they can’t get off of,” Erszébet reminds him. She’s always kept that ideology close to her heart, close to her pride. Never become a cable car. Never get stuck in a rut you can’t get out of.

“Interesting,” he comments as he turns on his heel and starts walking his normal, slow as a snail pace through the crowd. He may be sluggish in pace, but for some reason the crowd parts slightly for him. He doesn’t have to use his elbows as deadly weapons and try to avoid flying limbs. Erszébet may walk at a breakneck pace that causes even her friends who run to have trouble keeping up, but no one ever parts for her. She’s had to fight for every inch of ground she’s ever gotten, every step, and she wouldn’t have it a single other way.

So she walks home, no one is there but some forlorn books and the usual furniture and trinkets. She puts on a bracelet, thin silver and bequeathed by her grandmother, since it matches nicely with her outfit and why not?

“Hello, again,” Roderich greets her, his hair poofed back into it’s normal position, his cowlick sticking up all funny. It’s endearing, cute even, and she’s always admired it’s inner strength. Even when it’s soaking wet with rain water, the misguided strands of hair standing straight at attention.

“You did really great on that music thingy,” she is about to continue with a better fitting word, finding herself circling a word that she can’t put a finger on.

“Performance, recital?” Roderich offers.

“That sounds good,” Erszébet says with a shrug. “But yeah, everything sounded great.”

“I’m glad you found it enjoyable,” he replies as they start walking in the direction of the soup and sandwich shop. It’s not too far from her apartment but a bit of a walk from the cramped hall where the concert had been held a little while ago. Most of the musicians had filtered out, it wasn’t exactly a comfortable environment with few windows and no air conditioning. Stuffy.

“Is there a public transport we could use?” Roderich asks, looking labored like he’s just returned from a cross country meet. He’s always been rather out of shape, a sickly child who spent much of his younger years in a wheelchair, and never spent much time out of the house.

“I guess so,” she answers, mentally running through the maps of metro and public transport that the government of Sweden keeps so efficient and smooth-running. Despite Feliks’ nagging about getting a driver’s license, the average person doesn’t really need one in Stockholm, but some people (like Feliks) do if they’ve got family outside of Stockholm, which he does, a few cousins in Suwałki. So every now and again he drives down to Nynäshamn and takes a ferry to Gdansk, and then then takes public transit to Suwałki. But Erszébet honestly has no reason to have a car, or a license for that matter in most situations.

“So how has the language club been going?” he asks her as they board a bus at the last minute, the driver glancing sharply at them, face pinched with impatience.

“Well, although I’ve been hoping to bring Lili along,” she explains. “She just moved in near my apartment.”

“Ah, I know her,” Roderich says conversationally.

Erszébet would really like to roll her eyes. “Why does everyone know everyone in this city? Seriously, all of you have either lived in the same city or went to the same school or some random thing. It’s actually kind of weird.”

“I agree. It’s almost impossible to meet someone who you don’t have mutual friends with,” Roderich declares as the bus lurches as he stumbles. Erszébet doesn’t, she sways and shifts her center of balance comfortably, because she’s quite used to it the movement of transit systems.

“Almost there,” Erszébet says in a sing-song voice. “Wait until you see the menu, it’s so delicious and really inexpensive,” she pauses and smiles as she watches his eyes flicker with vague interest at the ‘really inexpensive’ bit. “I usually get the dumpling soup with a Chinese pork wrap,” she comments as the bus swerves slightly to move around a slow bicycler.

“Hm,” he responds quietly while he opens a book that after squinting slightly, she can see the title is _The Life and Works of Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin_ , who if she remembers her secondary school education correctly, was a composer from Warsaw who gave limited but excellent performances to the public.

“Have you ever heard Chopin before?” he inquires, not entirely looking up from the biography.

She shrugs. “I think Feliks likes his music but I’ve never heard anything specifically. ”Four Scherzos for piano solo,” Roderich blurts, almost an instinctive response. “That’s my favorite,” he adds as an afterthought, “Although it’s not the most famous.”

Erszébet nods, although she doesn’t have a whole lot of information to add, Chopin’s music is not one of her areas of expertise. “Fascinating,” she replies, since she isn’t sure what else to say.

“I won’t attempt to engage you in conversation if you’re not interested,” Roderich mumbles and buries his nose deep in his book, apparently taking umbrage. Erszébet feels bitter and perhaps disappointed. Maybe he didn’t know that despite how much she enjoys a good song or a good recital, she’ll never learn to appreciate music like he does. Maybe that’s a problem for him. Erszébet fidgets, crossing her arms over her chest and feeling sort of stupid. She never feels like this, not with Feliks, not with Tino, not with Gilbert, not even with the kids they tutor in the language club who speak half a dozen languages with near perfect fluency.

“I apologize,” Roderich tells her after a long moment. Erszébet feels bitter, rebellious even. Like maybe she doesn’t want to play the obedient girlfriend who pretends to be interested in Chopin.

“I’m sure you do,” she tells him without wavering her glare.

Roderich narrows his dark blue eyes. “I said I was sorry.”

“I’m aware,” Erszébet reminds him as she leans against the wall of the bus, keeping a strong grip on one of the handrails as the vehicle screeches to a halt for the stop before theirs.

“I didn’t mean to make you feel stupid,” Roderich croaks, like every word is another slash right across his carotid artery. They may be very different, but they both have too much pride, too much pride in themselves, their abilities, and things that deep down, they harbor insecurity about. Erszébet calms. She is never angry for very long. “I know,” she mumbles. They stand in silence for a minute more, but this time isn’t a very uncomfortable silence. It’s just there.

“This is our stop,” Erszébet alerts him a moment before the bus comes to a halt. She worms her way out of the crowd and onto the sidewalk, pointing half a block down to a sign that sticks out a foot into the sidewalk, reading in Swedish, “Soup and Crackers Café”. Erszébet opens the door for him, and waves hello to Matthew, who is a long time employee. They have Calc III together, and they’ve spoken once or twice.

“Welcome to the Soup and Crackers Café,” Matthew welcomes them with a gentle smile, soft and barely noticeable.

“Thank you,” Roderich replies stiffly.

“Slow day?” Erszébet asks, noting only one other patron in the store, who was buying a pastry, an eclair or something.

Matthew shrugs as he hands Roderich a menu since she doesn’t need one, which changes frequently but always has the same base foods. “Not really, it’s just sort of a weird time,” he declares as he glances at the clock.

“I suppose so,” Erszébet says cheerfully. It is. It’s 15:45 o'clock, which is, for most people on most days, too late for lunch and too early for dinner. They order, which Matthew doesn’t even need to write down since he’s got a knack for remembering things that people say, and look at each other for a moment. Erszébet ties her hair back. It’s especially warm in the restaurant and humidity does strange things to her hair that are in no way comfortably on the back of her neck.

“Why didn’t you ever learn an instrument?” Roderich asks her.

Erszébet shrugs her shoulders up and down. “I can play guitar half all right,” she offers, holding up her calloused hands in indication, the worn down marks on her skin battle scars from long nights of strumming and picking at strings and holding cords.

He snorts in disdain. “I meant a respectable instrument.”

“Who are you to say what’s respectable and what’s not?” she counters as she twirls the straw in her water. He recoils slightly in surprise, and she smirks playfully.

“A classical instrument, used in an orchestra,” he hisses, appearing almost pained that this conversation even needs to take place.

“Guitars and guitar-like instruments have been used since around the 12th century,” Erszébet says, a smile threatening to split across her face. She doesn’t really think that a guitar is a classical instrument, but it’s funny to see how far the vein on his neck can pulse outward. Also, after the almost-argument a few minutes before, she feels it’d be a good decision to lighten the mood. Plus, it’s just plain amusing.

“I might have to consider ending our relationship if you honestly believe that a guitar could be played in an orchestra pit,” he says, and so seriously that for a moment Erszébet thinks she might have gone too far, that he is actually serious. But then he smiles lightly, and she’s relieved for two reasons. The first being obvious, and the second that Roderich is in fact capable of making a joke, or something similar.


	19. Chapter 19

The alarm buzzes angrily.

Not again.

_Get up, you’re being lazy._

Erszébet groans and puts her hand to her forehead, and feels beads of sweat. It’s been quite a while since she was sick, and prays that she is not. She has important work today, a vitally important lab and a French Culture test. She smacks the alarm clock blindly, aiming for the snooze but hitting the stack of books next to the timepiece. There is a clatter of pages and binding as they are swiped off and fall to the floor. Erszébet teeters to her feet and holds herself steady on the side of the bed. Just as she is planning to pick up the books, there is a rapid knocking at the door, which isn’t even closed.

“Come in,” she says, voice strained and cracking. She squints in the bright fluorescents and plops down on the side of the bed.

“I heard something fall,” Feliks mutters drowsily as he rubs sleep out of his eyes with one hand and holds a toothbrush in the other, despite the fact that he’s already dressed and has pinned back his hair with a barrette. Erszébet is convinced he does half of the things he does in the morning while asleep.

“Just the books,” she murmurs, getting to her feet more forcefully and telling herself that she will not miss class. She can’t miss class, she’s used her sick days with a bad flu in the first semester.

“You look terrible,” Feliks tells her, looking slightly concerned.

“I know,” she sighs. Her eyes are crusted with goop that won’t seem to come out no matter how hard she scrubs, her throat is arid and scratched, and every inch of her skin is sizzling with unnecessary heat.

“I’m going to go take a shower,” she murmurs tiredly, grabbing the towel that she throws over her closet door to dry.

“Don’t pass out!” Feliks calls after her helpfully, wandering into the kitchen to make breakfast, presumably. Erszébet has always hated being sick, and she groans as she raises her arm to toss the towel on its hook. Shedding her pajamas, purple cotton and soaked with sweat, she fans herself with her hand and turns the faucet abruptly all the way to the cold side. She feels it with her fingers and sits down on the floor of the shower, letting the water run over her feet and ankles. Erszébet leans back against the wall, it’s a fairly small shower, closes her eyes, and exhales a long sigh of air. Her breath feels hot and disgusting in her mouth. It isn’t even seven yet, and she already knows this is not going to be a very favorable day.

An hour later, she is leaning against the cabinets in the kitchen while Feliks finishes an application for something at the table. Erszébet doubts that she’ll be able to keep anything down, so she opts to cautiously sip at a half-full glass of water.

“You probably shouldn’t go to class,” Feliks suggests absently.

Erszébet runs her hands through her hair and ties it back messily in what is no doubt an unattractive ponytail. “I have to, I have a lab and a test.”

Feliks becomes completely serious at once, eyebrows leveling out and smirk disappearing, a relatively rare event. “Don’t do a lab while you’re nauseous or light-headed, it’s a really terrible idea.”

“I didn’t say I was nauseous or light-headed, just feverish and tired,” she corrects him with a scratchy voice, wondering where on earth he is pulling this advice from if she isn’t even displaying the symptoms he is talking about. Sometimes she thinks that he replies to people without even listening to what they’ve said.

“Oh,” he says shortly, returning to his work, and Erszébet returns to carefully taking delicate sips of the water.

“I’ll be off,” she says as she tosses binders into her backpack mostly at random, since they’re not clearly labelled and she can’t be bothered to check the contents. With a half-hearted good-bye, she walks slowly out of the building. Erszébet has left earlier than she normally does, allotting time for whatever happened while she attempted to take the metro stumbling around and feverish. She’d done it before and gotten scolded for public intoxication. The bus stop is only a block down the street, and she walks cautiously down the sidewalk, Erszébet realizes that it’s been a while since she’s looked at the streets. Actually looked at them, and as she notices chalk signs decorated with flowers and signs of summer, she comes to the conclusion that just maybe it takes a little pain to notice the things you take for granted. Sumer is so close, it’s already May and the semester is almost over- it sounds so cliche, but where has the time gone? Only a month ago she was fighting with Feliks, had no female friends to speak of, and bittered by two long-term relationships that hadn’t worked, except maybe they both had. She decides that just because a relationship ends doesn’t mean it was a failure. Erszébet remembers good times with Gilbert, fighting and impassioned discussions, remembers good times with Roderich, classical music and formal discussion over dinners, and even remembers good times with the boyfriends that only flitted into her life, a few months or less. Erszébet clutches her head with her free hand and curses herself. Why do all good realizations come in times of sickness, tragedy, or poverty?

She finishes her test for Contemporary French Culture. Erszébet could have done better in full health, but it’s most definitely better than a zero for not showing up at all, and she’s confident that she at least passed. The science building is not particularly nearby to the international language wing of the linguistic compound, but there is a straight shot, very simple bus route.

“Hey, Erszi,” Gilbert says, scooting back one of his headphones behind his ear. He’s leaning against the wall of the bus, jacket collar pulled all the way around his neck and cords of some music playing device tangled around his shoulders and head. He looks her up and down in surprise. “Are you sick? You look sick.”

“Is it that obvious?” she inquires with a sigh. The strands of hair that have escaped her ponytail feel sticky against her cheekbones.

“Yeah. You look like you’ve spent a day in one of those sauna things,” he says with a light-hearted chuckle.

Erszébet would cross her arms or put her hands on her hips but she has to hold onto the rail for support, given her weakened state. “I’m pushing through it,” she declares, which he laughs at. Raising her eyebrow and preparing herself to act deeply offended or kick him in the shins, he continues with the surprisingly decent, “When have you ever not pushed through anything?”

A little stunned at that, she shifts her weight and wishes she’d worn more comfortable shoes. Her socks feel soaked with sweat, and it’s honestly one of the more uncomfortable things she’s ever experienced. “Never,” she replies, trying valiantly to sound proud despite how miserable she feels.

“Take an ibuprofen,” he suggests with a shrug. 

“I’ve taken three,” she murmurs in aggravation. Those pills are supposed to reduce fevers, aren’t they? But she still feels as overheated as ever. Erszébet has not taken her own temperature though; it would most likely dishearten her.

“Bio lab, right?” he asks.

She narrows her eyes, and almost giggles at herself. Even like this, she always has the energy to be suspicious of his antics, or even non-antics. “Who told you?”

“Hey, I’ve got lots of friends,” he protests as he folds his arms over his chest pridefully.

She would like to tut in a childish voice, ‘whatever helps you sleep at night’, but she doubts she can pull off the childish voice at the moment. So instead she says, “Who do you know in bio topics?” Meanwhile, Erszébet runs through the people in her class’ names, trying to think of anyone that Gilbert would know.

“Mutual friend. You know my friend Francis? Well his friend Arthur helps out in that class,” he explains, gesturing boredly.

“Oh,” she concedes. Mr. Kirkland is quite helpful, albeit rather gruff and usually complaining about anything from the rainy weather to the quality of various teachers. He’s a second or third year med student if she recalls correctly. “Did you hear Feli has an assistantship now?” she queries and she fans herself with a packet of French cultural intricacies she’s got to memorize before the next test.

Gilbert smiles broadly and seems to lower defenses. “Yeah, it’s great. It’s good he’s finally got a real job. He’s a nice kid,” he murmurs. Erszébet smiles. Everyone likes Feliciano. Everyone.

“I’m happy for him,” she says lightly, and the bus comes to a stop, her stop. She waves good-bye and steps out, teetering slightly, ready to take on whatever Topics in Biology can throw at her.

She finishes the lab without incident, thank goodness. Her partner had been a youngish girl, black hair sloppily parted and tied with red ribbon. She had been rather messy with the materials and not been very good about cleaning up her tools or such, but she’d been friendly and hadn’t talked too loudly for her now slightly hurting head.

“I’m home,” she tells what she had been expecting to be an empty house. Feliks has class, and even if he didn’t, he’d be out anyhow. There aren’t normally other people in her apartment besides him, and especially not uninvited. Roderich a few times maybe, and Feliciano when he has absolutely nothing to do. Which at times can be rather frequently. She drops her bag on the floor and kicks off her shoes and socks, before she notices the sleeping (?) figure on the small sofa. It’s very obviously Tino, blond hair mussed over his closed eyes. Clutching her head, she stumbles closer to the couch, squinting at his chest to ensure that he is fact breathing. After deducing that he was, she retreats to the bathroom, stripping her clothes off and folding them into a pile for washing later. Erszébet sits once again in the bathtub with a damp washcloth pressed against her forehead, running the cold water over her feet. She puts the plug in the drain, and allow the frigid water to cool her sweltering skin. Nothing has ever felt more refreshing, she tells herself rashly as she tilts her head back on the tile. While humming whichever Haloo Helsinki! song is stuck in her head at the moment, she wiggles her toes against the white slab on the wall. An hour later she was dressed in a large, breathable tee shirt and running shorts, the freshly dampened washcloth once again to her forehead.

“Tino?” she asks, tapping him gently on the shoulder as she fans her face using a magazine with her free hand.

“Hm?” he mumbles, eyes still closed. A second later, he sits up abruptly, and Erszébet jumps backs in surprise. “Oh goodness Erszi, I’m so sorry, I lost track of time, Feliks said I could stay here for a bit-” he is about to continue, but Erszébet cuts him off.

“Don’t worry about it,” she tells him, silently appreciating how he doesn’t comment on her dishevelled appearance. “But if I may,” Erszébet begins, sitting criss-cross on the floor where the air is coldest. “Why are you here? Is everything okay?”

“It’s been better,” Tino murmurs. He appears utterly exhausted, dark circles under his eyes and hands weathered by hard work, brow crinkled and the corners of his eyes dry. Erszébet would make a pot of tea, but she’d probably go up in flames if she turned the stove on.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, concern knitting her eyebrows together.

He sits up straighter, and almost looks as if he might attempt to laugh it off and change the subject, but she fixes him with a glare that lets him know that he will never get away with it.

“I guess whenever I am around people who are stressed, I sort of absorb their worries so I can try to help them,” he explains uncomfortably, and Erszébet, while certain that this is not the real or the entire reason for his unhappiness, decides it best to accept it. If Tino is to open up, he’ll do it on his own pace, there’s no reason to rush him along. She guesses that it has something to do with Berwald, something about him always seemed off to her. Maybe it’s the silence, maybe it’s that it seems to her as if Berwald wants to possess Tino, while Tino can never be truly possessed. A true free spirit, he could never be held down by obligations and troubles, much less a boyfriend or friend.

“It’s Berwald,” he blurts.

_That didn’t take long_ , she notes vaguely. “Hm?” she presses him, gently.

“He puts me on a pedestal all the time, like I can never be the one causing the problem or being annoying. It’s been on my nerves a bit for a while, but recently, ugh,” Tino trails off as he swings his legs as he scoots to edge of the couch.

Erszébet blinks. She can think of at least a hundred other complaints that she would have thought he’d said before saying that one. She blinks again, before replying slowly, “Have you tried talking to him about it?”

Tino makes a frustrated grimace. “That’s what I tried first,” he says somewhat haughtily, before softening his tone and adding, “I like to work things out as efficiently as I can so no one is left in the dark.”

“Does he not listen or not understand?” she asks wisely.

Tino shrugs in bewilderment. “I have no idea.”

“Ask him,” she suggests.

“I have,” he answers tiredly.

Erszébet raises an eyebrow and fans herself faster. “Then it sounds like you’re having a bit of a communication problem,” she deduces.

“I know,” Tino says in exhaustion. “Also, I don’t know what’s up with Eduard. He seems different,” he muses. “He jumps at loud sounds, freezes when a stranger tries to talk to him, that kind of stuff.”

“I can’t help you there, I don’t know him,” she murmurs, as she gets up to re-soak the washcloth in cool water.

“I’m worried about him,” Tino replies as he gets to his feet as well.

“You worry about everyone,” Erszébet tells him as she sits back down on the floor. 

Tino shrugs. “You should get a hammock.”

She cocks an eyebrow at that, but doesn’t have the energy to make a more befuddled face. “What? Why?” she inquires in confusion. What did hammocks have anything to do with anything?

“It’ll keep you cooler than a bed, it allows air to circulate,” he declares as he packs his bag.

“Hm. How do you know that? You’re from Finland, where everything is cold,” Erszébet comments laconically.

“It’s actually probably about 16 degrees [celsius] right now,” he answers.

“Hm,” she replies in disinterest as she collapses in exhaustion and feverishness onto the tile.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to take you to a doctor?”

“I’m fine,” she mutters, and he leaves shortly after he wishes for the return of good health and apologizes passionately once again for intruding. With a sigh, Erszébet rolls onto her side, and wills the overwhelming overheat to pass, wills the hot air cocooning her body like a noose to release.

“You didn’t answer your phone,” Roderich’s voice tells her over the phone.

Erszébet snorts at that. “Of course not, I’m ill,” she informs him as she runs her fingers through her sweat-soaked hair.

“It’s not very difficult to pick up the phone,” he tells her lightly, but the words sting. As if she had been exaggerating or playing around or just acting a drama queen.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” Erszébet spits into the phone angrily, because he doesn’t have the right to tell her that she was lazy, she’s not lazy. She is an extremely hard-worker with a decent work ethic, and resents being told she’s not trying had enough after spending her whole day trying to get things done while feeling awfully miserable.

“Of course not, but,” he begins, but she presses the ‘end’ button with her thumb before she can even realize what she’s doing. Erszébet is not interested in hearing his formal language and dressed-up words that could easily be substituted with much simpler ones for a minute more today. Really, all she wants to do it get some sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure if there was a real purpose to this chapter, but I'm setting up for other things to happen, so please bear with me :) And as always, English is my fifth language, so any suggestions for edits would be greatly appreciated! Also, best wishes to Hungary for the Eurovision contest from Finland! It's great when countries have their song in the main language of the country and they're still beautiful even if you don't understand the words.


	20. Chapter 20

Erszébet feels mostly better the next day; she ties up her hair in a long string of black ribbon and heads over to Lili’s, who has graciously invited her home to various visitors for a quick get-together in celebration of their dwindling free time before finals begin, in only a week or so.

“I brought cookies,” she offers weakly, which she didn’t really make, just cut the dough into pieces from the package, and slathered them with the remaining sprinkles from Christmas cookie decorating.

“Thanks for coming,” Lili says cheerfully, letting her into the small great room, where a few people she recognizes and a few she doesn’t are collected around a broad wood table crowded with platters and tupperware.

“Hello, Erszi,” Tino says. He standing next to Eduard, Berwald standing slightly off to the side but relatively nearby. She sees Lovino, Feliciano, Gilbert, Toris and a small boy who seems to be flitting between clinging to Eduard and clinging to Toris, Kiku from the math project, and someone she doesn’t recognize at all.

“Hey, Tino,” she says. “Been keeping up with Eurovision?” she asks conversationally.

“Sort of. I watched a re-cap. What’s your favorite?”

“Hungary, and not just because I’m Hungarian. I like it a lot,” she says.

He smiles. “Me as well, but I prefer Malta’s. Nice tune and all,” Tino explains with a shrug. Erszébet can maybe sort of feel Gilbert’s eyes on her, but decides to ignore the feeling in favor of discussing the Eurovision contestants, especially the ones that they find silly. She waves hello to Eduard.

“How long are you in Stockholm for?”

“About a week, maybe more if I find a reason to. I finished all my high school credits the previous summer, so I’m just killing time until my programming job starts. This is Raivis, he’s here for a couple days.”

“Nice to meet you,” she says, extending her hand down to his level. He makes a small, fearful sound in the back of his throat, but shakes her hand.

“How was the anatomy test, Toris?” she asks him.

He smiles pleasantly. “Well, I passed, only barely though. It ran a few hours long though,” he adds.

“Wow, long test,” she whistles in surprise. She wasn’t even aware teachers were permitted to administer examinations that required such large chunks of time. They probably aren’t, she thinks. Lili wanders over after finishing a conversation with Lovino, who sulks over to talk to his brother.

“What do you think is going to be your hardest exam?” Lili asks the small group of people, gradually expanding as others wander over and join the almost-circle. She looks quite pretty, her cropped blond hair french-braided away from her forehead and tied with red-violet ribbons.

“Probably Calc III,” Erszébet estimates. Even though she quite enjoys the class, it’s a lot of material covered in only one semester, and even for someone who enjoys mathematics, it can be quite taxing.

“Applied and environmental microbiology,” Tino sighs. “I’ve still got to finish my final project on water microbes.”

Toris blinks at the question. “Anatomy, I would guess.”

“What are you majoring in?” Eduard asks Lili politely.

“Philosophy, minor in German,” she answers. “I mostly have difficulty remembering the dates for things,” she admits with a little laugh as she takes a sip out of the punch she or another guest has concocted.

They discuss classes and courses and this and that teacher for a while before dissipating vaguely into separate conversation groups, since not everyone knows everyone. The only person she has never encountered previously is Herakles Karpusi, who knows Lili since he’s also majoring in philosophy, additionally he seems to get along well with Kiku.

“My step-brother should be here soon,” she half-hears Lili say to Feliciano. “I can introduce you.”

Meanwhile, Erszébet floats around the room like a bubble, striking up small talk with whoever. She’s always enjoyed conversation, and enjoys knowing what’s going on in her friends lives, and meeting new people. The get-together dies down slightly, and a few people leave with reasons such as studying or visiting family or similar. It’s the weekend before finals begin, which basically means it’s their last chance to do anything remotely outside of school before they’re completely swamped with studies and crammed in end of the semester grades. Erszébet is looking forward to the end of this school year. She’s only got one more year, maybe only a semester if she takes enough credits. Erszébet is planning on maybe moving to Hungary or back to New York, it’s unlikely she’ll stay in Stockholm after her education comes to a conclusion.

“Would you mind grabbing those plates?” Lili asks her as she juggles the silverware and bowls over to the sink, sliding vibrant purple dishwashing gloves over her thin hands.

“No problem,” Erszébet replies, picking up the plates and moving them over to the counter beside the sink.

“Thanks. I thought it’d be nice to have some friends get together before the school year ends,” she comments as she flicks the faucet on. The water drops from the pipes in a rush without hesitation. Lili lets her bare wrist fall under the water’s path, and adjusts the temperature.

“I agree, thanks for having everyone,” Erszébet responds absently as she starts to wipe down the dishes Lili passes her.

“Are you feeling better? I heard that you were quite under the weather yesterday.”

“Yeah, I’m fine now,” Erszébet answers.

“That’s good. I’m surprised my stepbrother didn’t show. He normally comes to my parties when I ask nicely,” she says with a small giggle.

“He might be busy. It is finals time,” Erszébet suggests.

They finish the dishes in relative silence, and just as Lili thanks her, the door opens rather hurriedly, and a rather short blond man with a dark green sweater steps inside.

“Sorry, Lili, I got held up at a test and then the bus got stuck in traffic,” her stepbrother explains hurriedly as he jams his keychain back into his backpack. He freezes when he sees Erszébet. “Hello, Erszébet, I wasn’t aware that you were acquainted with Lili.”

“Do you know each other?” Lili asks in confusion, and very suddenly the shock registers with Erszébet. How did she not realize this before? Lili talked often about her stepbrother but never called him by name, and back when he was a teacher she remembers a picture of a little kid, a blond girl with a ribbon tied her hair, in his wallet. She should have put two and two together, Erszébet decides.

“He was a teacher at my secondary school,” Erszébet says weakly, shifting uncomfortably from her heels to the balls of her feet.

“A teaching assistant,” Vash corrects her. It’s all terribly awkward. Erszébet has never been much for reunions, she prefers things in the past to stay in the past.

“Oh, what a coincidence!” Lili exclaims. “I feel like everyone knows everyone in this city.”

“I know what you mean,” Erszébet sympathizes.

“I agree,” Vash adds as he drops his backpack on the floors and makes a plate for himself with the remaining foods sitting on the table.

“So, how’s your stats degree coming along?” he asks in a manner that is clearly supposed to be conversational, but actually just stiff and graceless. Erszébet notes that he and Roderich are sort of similar, all formal, distant, and frugal with money and affections.

“Quite well, my classes are almost over. I’ve just got finals and then one or two semesters and then I’m done,” she replies.

“I need three semesters of credits to get a master’s degree, since I’d like to become a full-time teacher back in Bern,” he comments gruffly. He would be an excellent teacher, Erszébet decides. Despite his intrinsic nature to be taciturn and overly-protective, he’s extremely adept at explaining complicated things in a simple way that convert even the most passionate math hater into a statistics major, like it did with her. They catch up for a few minutes but he leaves in a hurry for another class, and she returns to her apartment, where Feliks is sprawled out on the floor with a stack of textbooks and notebooks.

“How’s the studying going?” she inquires as she pours herself a cup of tea from the kettle on the stove. The tea is a little cold, but not as much as it perhaps should be, probably since they don’t have air conditioning at it’s about 22 degrees out. And humid.

“I guess okay,” he mumbles as he flips through a stack of notecards without really looking at them.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Really?”

“Really,” he snaps back peevishly, and Erszébet backs off and rolls her eyes in annoyance as she sits on one of the couches.

“Do you want help studying?” she offers with a shrug. They have some similar classes, and both of their majors are in the math field, so it’s possible that she could be helpful.

“Nope.”

“Well, I have to go find Roderich and sort some things out,” she declares as she flips open her phone. There’s a voicemail recording, but she is not sure if she wants to listen to it. She exits the room and shuts the door to her room; she doesn’t want Feliks overhearing anything about this matter. And besides, it’s not like he deserves any information, she thinks bitterly, since he gives her none.

A thin voice tells her after she presses the ‘listen’ button with her index finger, “I’d like to apologize for treating you rather unkindly the previous evening. It wasn’t my place and if you wouldn’t mind meeting me sometimes today or tomorrow to talk it out that would be greatly appreciated.”

Erszébet sits on her bed, because she doesn’t know what she should think, much less what she should do. She likes Roderich, she really does. They had so many great times in high school before their lives got so complicated and they didn’t speak for several years. Maybe there is too much between them, she ponders as she fingers the loose threads of the blanket she’s sitting on. Erszébet recalls with fading clarity their break-up, furious and scathing, all hearsay and yelling and a build-up of bitterness being released in a few seconds of words. She remembers being surprised at Roderich’s viciousness, but even more surprised at her own. Maybe they have known each other too long. Maybe they can be friends, but could they ever find something as good as before? Erszébet honestly has no idea. No possible clue, except for a tiny voice that may or may not be saying that it won’t work. Roderich is (usually) kind to her, all formal and pleasant conversation and music-playing. But she is not like that, she likes the outdoors, hiking in parks and splashing around in lakes without worry of bacteria or microbes. She is not finicky, formal, particularly stingy, or worrisome. Now that she thinks about it, she can think of very few things that they both enjoy. _Well this sucks_ , Erszébet tells herself with a sigh. Because despite all these worries, she feels there may always be a part of her that is truly fond of him, finds his worries endearing instead of annoying and his stiff speech funny instead of stifling. Erszébet has always thought of herself as a decisive person, the kind of person who knows what she wants and doesn’t circle around something meaninglessly for a few weeks to gain courage. Now, she decides, she must do something that perhaps she should have done all along. Because that fondness of him is not enough to build a whole new relationship out of the broken glass of their previous one. Erszébet rubs her eyes. She is not going to cry, will not weep for something lost, because she knows that being honest with herself and the people around her is in fact something gained.

“I know why you agreed to see me,” Roderich sighs.

Erszébet isn’t cruel, she isn’t going to prod him and give him false hope about what this conversation is about. “I don’t think this is working out,” she admits in a slow, careful voice. She treads lightly.

“I know,” he replies with equal caution.

It is a quiet break-up, simple and absent of grand declarations. It suits the both of them, she realizes sadly. Not flashy or particularly emotional, it’s just what happens and she thinks all and all, as she leaves him in the coffee shop to finish his tea, it probably is for the best. She doesn’t return to the apartment, not immediately, since she doesn’t really want to tell Feliks at the moment. She goes to the library, since they’ve got study materials available for loan right now, and Erszébet is kidding herself if she thinks she doesn’t need to study. As she hums a song to herself, opening and closing the books and looking for an advanced topics in stats study guide, she begins to feel a little sad. There is nothing concrete here, and she hates that. A part of her always thought, when she was naive and in high school and thought that things like this worked out more often that not, that one day they would fall in love and get married. Years of on and off, nondescript understanding and vague friendship, has led to this, which is, even at the acme, anticlimactic. There is no finality. Erszébet shakes the feeling off and locates review books for all her classes except contemporary French culture: advanced stats, calc III, mathematical foundations for computer science, advanced probability theory, bio, and advanced French lit analysis. She checks out at the small table in the back, with a strict warning from the librarian to bring them back in ten days or face a large sum of fines. Erszébet sets an alarm on her phone so she remembers, and exits the library with her books in a waterproof bag. Ten minutes later, she opens the door to her apartment. Feliks is standing in the kitchen, hair tied up and looking frazzled. Half of the drawers are pulled out from their hinges, and he appears to be reorganizing entire layout of where they keep their kitchen supplies. Every now and then, he does this, and despite how infuriating it is, she has come to accept that it’s a stress response. Some people drink alcohol to take the edge off, some smoke, and Feliks reorganizes kitchen drawers. Erszébet sighs, drops her bag of books at her cramped desk and crosses her arms. “What are you doing?” she asks between her teeth while keeping her voice as light as possible.

“Moving some stuff around. Our kitchen was getting totally boring,” he retorts, voice wound tight.

“I see,” she says, although she really doesn’t. She decides to let it go for now; she can switch it back later while he’s sleeping or not paying attention.

“I’m going to study, make sure you put all the stuff away when you’re done,” she reminds him.

Feliks nods without looking up, and Erszébet sighs and picks up one of the heavy review textbooks. She opens her clunky laptop and opens a word document. She types: French Literature Analysis Study Materials 2013 and for a moment, feels daunted by the blank page, but quickly pushes through the feeling and starts typing. The blank page and at least a dozen more are quickly filled with 12 point font, things she needs to memorize and vocabulary words Erszébet needs to know before the test occurs. Erszébet sighs and stretches her hands above her head, closes the French book and opens the Calc III one. It’s going to be a long weekend, she realizes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slightly random, but someone inboxed me and asked where Kaliningrad Oblast is, which I figured I needed to adress since the place is referenced in this story a lot and will be referenced even more in companion stories. To answer the question, it's that bit of Russia that's disconnected from the mainland of Russia, it's between Poland and Lithuania and has a lot of historical significance for several countries, including East Germany.


	21. Chapter 21

Finals pass by in a blur. And after what is affectionately called the post-final day of sleep, Erszébet picks herself back up off the bed, brushes her teeth, gets dressed, and steps into the kitchen. It’s Sunday morning, and Feliks is probably at church, so she has a morning to herself, which is quite lovely after a week of almost no sleep and regurgitating memorized information onto long exams. The semester is over and with it comes summer, two and a half months of having fun and deciding what she is going to do after senior year. She checks her computer and learns that she has passed all of her exams with flying colors, with the exception of Calculus III which she barely passed, but she isn’t worried about it. Swelling with empowerment, she shrugs her shoulder upwards, flips on the fan in the living room, and eats breakfast, a bagel with cream cheese. Erszébet opens her phone, plugs in her headphones, and decides she’s going to go for a run. It’s been a while since she’d had time to dedicate to something like this, and it’s nice outside, albeit a bit too warm. She switches her shirt for a tee-shirt and skirt for athletic shorts. Erszébet presses her thumb on a playlist and walks out of the building. There’s a park around the corner with nice trails for running, and bikes aren’t allowed so she won’t have to worry about getting run over. 

Once she starts running, Erszébet is acutely aware that it has been far too long since she did this. Her chest heaves as the picks up the pace, the strong muscles around her calves irked from lack of use in the past month or so. Despite this though, the park really is quite beautiful, darkened green leaves cling to branches that shade the path from the unforgiving bright sun that pulses down beats of pure heat. There are insects, birds, and an abundance of children playing in the field to the right. The path is rather wide, with enough space for three people to walk side by side comfortably, but the outer edges have been overtaken by storm debris and out of control vines. 

“Woah!” she exclaims, tripping over a person’s feet who is kneeling on the path with a trash bag and a reflective vest. “What are you doing in the middle of the-” she begins, but stops when the man turns around, eyes glittering with amusement and white blond hair sweaty and mussed in all directions. 

“Well would you look at that, what brings you here, Erszi?” he asks, and Erszébet smirks at him in a self-satisfied way. 

“An how is your community service coming along, Gilbert?” 

He rolls his eyes and laughs. “I’m not doing community service, I’m just-” 

“Save it,” she suggests as he stutters to come up with an alternative explanation. “So, what’d you do this time?” she asks curiously as he takes out one of his headphones. She can just hear the hum of the music he’s listening to. 

Gilbert crosses his arms over his chest and gets to his feet. “Nothing,” he mutters, and suddenly, Erszébet recalls the reason that Feliks had his arm in a cast for about a month, and the reason she had to take him to that medical clinic to get his dislocated knee looked at, since he refused. She doesn’t comment on her memory, and yanks out her earphones. Erszébet doesn’t bother to turn the music off though, she doubts this conversation will last very long. 

“So, a little bird told me that Roddy and you broke off your engagement,” he taunts her. 

“We were never engaged,” she says between her teeth, and realizes he is trying to turn the tables from her making fun of him to him making fun of her. She doesn’t like this, and is determined to stay on top of his childish presumptions. 

_She laughs at my dreams but I dream about her laughter. Strange as it seems she’s the one I’m after._

_‘Cause she’s bittersweet, she knocks me off of my feet._

“Oh really?” he laughs as he stabs a sandwich wrapper with his trash fork and deposits it into the bag he’s hauling around. He slides a knife out of his belt loop, and for a moment Erszébet is irrationally scared for one terrible moment, but he gets back on his knees and resumes cutting the vines invading the walkway. 

“Want some help?” she offers, and curses herself. To save face, she adds, “I’m probably much better with a knife than you are.” 

He smirks at that and passes her the box cutter carelessly, as he pushes back dirt and gravel rocks from the path. It seems as if he’s got a lot of work left to do- this path runs at least a couple miles and he’s only on the first one. Erszébet sets upon cutting back the spindly weeds that threaten to destroy the worn dirt with roots and seedlings. It’s an invasive species, if she recalls correctly. 

“How many hours do you have to get?” she asks. 

Gilbert shrugs. “Around a hundred, I think.” 

“That’s a lot,” she comments laconically. At this distance she can hear the music, the faint heartbeat of the tune and whispers of the lyrics. 

_She won't pick up the phone_

_She'd rather be alone_

_But I can't give up just yet_

_Cause every word she's ever said_

_Is still ringin' in my head_

“It’s no big deal,” he says easily. 

She raises an eyebrow. “It was to the person you hit with your car when you were drunk off your ass.” For once, she doesn’t regret saying exactly what was on her mind, because if anything he needs to hear it, and even though he may storm off in a moment with some stupid remark in a moment, it’s the right thing to do- even if it hurts a little bit. His stupid smile falters for a second, a second more. It seems as if he actually does have a bit of compassion hidden somewhere in his swollen, prideful heart. 

“But anyway, have you finished your exams?” she continued, rather surprised that he hasn’t stomped away by now. Gilbert can usually only take so much of her snapbacks. 

“Next week,” he answers. “But I’ve only got three.” 

“What are you studying to be?” 

He shrugs. “Nothing important,” he responds casually as he shifts over to another section of the path, wiping sweat off his brow with a swipe of his hand. She laughs at that. 

“There’s no such thing as an unimportant degree,” she declares. 

“I’m studying to be a police officer, I guess,” he mumbles, adjusting his earbuds. 

Erszébet is surprised at that, it’s a respectable degree and a respectable job. It sounds like it wouldn’t be too easy either, although she isn’t qualified to have an exact opinion since she doesn’t know an awful lot about it. 

“That’s interesting. I’m hoping to be a statistician, maybe a freelance interpreter on the side,” Erszébet informs him. 

“Sounds really boring,” he groans. “Who would want to spend all their time punching things into a calculator?” 

“I think it’s interesting,” she protests. 

“No one else does,” he says with an almost foreign-seeming air of seriousness. 

“Says you,” she replies without a pause, since even though it’s not a very good snapback, it’s better than being left stumbling in the dust of hers and Gilbert’s constant race- who can find the best insults, who can retort the quickest. 

“Oh, Feliks is calling me,” Erszébet remarks as her phone buzzes angrily. She hopes it’s nothing serious; the last time he called her he had just been hit by a car and was attempting to take a bus to the hospital. 

“Hello?” she says as Gilbert makes stupid faces at her. 

Feliks voice comes out in a rush, “Are you at that park?” 

She shrugs. “Um, yes. Why?” 

“Just wondering if you you were home,” 

“Nope,” she replies as she rolls her eyes at Gilbert. 

There is a long pause, in which she can hear a fair amount of background noise. She can make out at least one person talking but not individual voices or words, and when he finally replies the background noise only intensifies; it’s difficult to hear him. “Oh. Okay, bye.” 

“Wait, Feliks, what’s up?” 

“Nothing, nothing, don’t come back to the apartment.” 

The phone clicks. Erszébet shuts off her phone with a frustrated sigh. 

“I’m not even gonna ask.” 

“Good choice, because I’m not going to talk.” 

“Why’d you and Roddy break up?” 

Erszébet fixes him with a stare so cold it could ice a broken arm. 

“You can’t make all topics off limits, Erszi,” Gilbert says with an easy grin, poking an aluminium can with his stick. 

Erszébet looks up, rolling her eyes, but her lapse of attention nearly costs her a finger. She doesn’t cut herself, but the knife snaps backwards onto the other side of the path. After hauling herself to her feet and reaching down to grab it, she walks back over and is just about to sit back down when- oh. 

Erszébet suddenly finds Gilbert’s lips on hers, suffocating and dry and enthusiastic. He touches her cheek with his thumb and index finger, and for a moment, she responds to the kiss, putting a hand on his waist and smacking their lips together. 

“Get off of me,” she orders, and hates how haughty and frivolous her voice sounds. She sees her hands, calloused and never particularly ladylike, shoot forward against his collarbone. It’s half a push and half a grasp, but in furtive response of embarrassment she makes it a shove, because she isn’t sure what else to do. She has been leading on Gilbert Beilschmidt ever since she knew him, and doubts that it will ever change. Theirs is a relationship of verbal smacks and smack-backs, of insults and teasing. 

“I never liked you anyway,” Gilbert spits out, so insecure despite his inflated ego. 

Erszébet smiles sadly. “If you never liked me, why did you kiss me?” she asks, and walks away after giving him back his box cutter, which he snatches angrily and storms away. She puts her music back into her ears and feels sweat beads appear on her upper lip. She swipes it off, but is struck with the almost perfect opposite parallel of hers and Roderich’s and hers and Gilbert’s situation. In high school when they were still dating, Roderich could never have loved her as much as she loved him. Now, she could never love Gilbert as much as he has for so long. Erszébet feels strongly that she could never return his feelings in the same way. They grew up together, they went to awkward middle school dances together, and studied last-minute for countless school tests. She is not afraid of admitting emotions usually, but for some reason this is different, confusing in a way that she cannot yet point out. 

“Beilshmidt, get back on the job, you’re not here to pick up girls,” a supervisor tells him. 

“Sorry, Mr. Daubney, but I’m good at multitasking,” Gilbert replies. Erszébet closes the box knife and kneels down to slide it across the sidewalk. Without so much as another glance at him, she turns around. 

“See you around!” Gilbert shouts after her. 

“In your dreams!” she yells back. Erszébet cranks up her music and runs faster. 

Erszébet comes back from her run sweaty, tired, and sore, but Feliks’ call earlier makes her hesitant to return to their apartment. They may be roommates, but there are boundaries, and if he asks her not to be there for a few hours, she has to respect that. 

She opens her phone once more and calls Tino’s number. “Tino, can I come over to your house for a bit?” 

“Um, now’s not a great time,” Tino replies. His voice sounds thick with crying and stress, and after the first word he sniffles. 

“Tino are you okay?” she asks seriously, dropping her wallet on the ground. Resisting the urge to hiss angrily, she bends over to pick it up and shoves it back into her sling backpack. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. Berwald and I are fighting. We’ll work it out.” 

“Is he hurting you?” Erszébet hisses. 

“No! Of course not! Why would you say something like that, Erszi?!” 

“Okay, okay, sorry. I jumped the gun.” 

Tino sighs. “It’s no big deal. He thinks Eduard and I are going behind his back. He’s crazy,” he says with a nervous laugh. “I would never do anything with a high school student.” 

Erszébet sees the lie, but he can’t believe Tino would ever cheat on a significant other. He’s fanatical about sticking to his values even in the worst of times, and it’s not just all talk. Erszi’s known him long enough to know that Tino is probably the most honourable, decent person he knows. But she does know that he is lying through his teeth, lying through his nervous laughter. 

“Tino. What happened?” 

“What do you mean? I just told you. Berwald and I are having some issues, I’m hiding in the bathroom, and telling you that we’re going to work it out.” 

“Don’t lie to me, Tino. What happened with you and Eduard?” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Erszébet. First you accuse _Berwald_ of all people of abusing me, and now you’re accusing me of cheating with a teenage boy!” 

There is a long silence between them, but Tino doesn't hang up. 

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” Erszébet replies. 

“You’re right,” he says weakly. “But not about the cheating! He got drunk on Raivis’s spiked water bottle accidentally; he started hitting on me. I didn’t know what to do, and before I knew what was even happening he started hugging me and tried to kiss me. I pushed him away, but.” He doesn’t finish the sentence. 

“Tell him the truth, Tino. Tell him you didn’t do anything wrong,” Erszi says gently. He sniffles on the other line, and she can almost see him putting his face in his hands. 

“I don’t want to screw anything up. We’ve been together so long.” 

Erszébet doesn’t know what to say. She is known for giving terrible advice. 

“I’m going to hang up now, talk to you later. I’ll let you know how it works out,” he says in a hushed voice, and hangs up. 

Erszébet feels terrible for Tino. He’s such a lovely, kindhearted individual. He shouldn’t have to carry around guilt about something that wasn’t his fault. Desperately, she texts Feliks. She needs to get home. 

Immediately, he responds with, _you can come over now._

_thanks. i think I just screwed up everything with tino, might need a shoulder to cry on_

_as if you ever cry_

_fine, complain_

_better_

“Shit, I never know how to help anyone,” Erszébet surmises about thirty minutes later. 

“I’m sure he’ll work through it.” 

“What about you? What were you doing?” she asks deflatedly, flopping backwards onto the sofa and lifting her head to make eye contact with him. Abruptly, she notices the hydrogen peroxide and bandage roll on the kitchen countertop, nudged behind the toaster oven. 

“Are you injured?” 

“No, why?” he asks. 

“Because you’ve been treating someone for injuries here. I’m going to use my only guess and go with Toris Laurinaitis.” 

He laughs. “Why do you say that?” 

“Because I’ve known you a long time, and you blabber about everything. When you and Zosia were dating you wouldn’t stop talking about her. Now you spend nearly all your time with Toris and you never talk about him.” 

“He got beat up.” 

“He’s been beat up before,” Erszi prods. 

Feliks nods miserably. 

“Are you dating?” 

Feliks’ twists his mouth uncomfortably, and shifts his weight backwards into the chair, gazing up at the ceiling with a defeated expression on his face. “Yeah.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me? You’re usually such a blabbermouth,” she notes affectionately, trying to disguise her worry. 

“He told me not to tell anyone.” 

“Please tell me you’re not in abusive relationship,” Erszi breathes, closing her eyes. 

“God no! He’s sweet. But his family’s involved in the mob.” 

“What!” Erszébet exclaims. She can’t believe that of all the suitable young men in Stockholm, he had to chose the one whose relatives are probably money laundering, murdering mafia bosses. 

“I’m not telling you anything else,” Feliks says. 

“Fine. But I’m googling his family name,” she declares, and Erszébet types in L-a-u-r-i-n-a-i-t-i-s into the search bar. 

“No! Please don’t!” 

“Why? You running a secret stalker blog about him or something?” 

The second result hasn’t even popped up yet when she involuntarily says, “Oh.”


	22. Chapter 22

Erszébet spends the morning at the ULC translating for some poor single mother who just got granted amnesty from her sex-slave prison in Hungary. It takes only half an hour. Erszébet straightens out her citizenship concerns with a few forms, and directs her to a woman who can find her a safe place to stay. Emotional stress be damned, she likes helping people. She always pictured her future as being one in an office building with a calculator and endless amounts of data, but this club is poking holes in her future plans. Simultaneously, Erszébet hates it and loves it.

That aside, now that classes are over for the semester, Feliks and her are signing up for a few stray summer courses. Then they’re meeting Tino for lunch.

“Are we getting off at this stop?” Feliks asks nonchalantly.

“You aren’t going to talk to me about this?”

“What?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe that half of your sweetheart’s family members are convicted charlatans, murderers, and stalkers. His surname brought up a lot of hits on the organised crime arrest records all over Eastern Europe, even a few with Interpol.”

“Don’t associate him with them,” Feliks hisses, and opens his phone in an effort to ignore her. “He’s nothing like them.”

“Fine.”

The train lurches, and Erszébet tightens her hold on the loop from the ceiling.

“What courses are you going to take?” Feliks asks finally. A peace offering. Tentative, but it’s something and she’s worked with less.

“I’m going to finish up my French credits. What about you?” “A few extra labs. I got an internship at a pathology lab.”

“Wow, nice,” she notes. It’s an impressive achievement for a rising sophomore in university. He’s barely an adult, and already with such a good job line up. “Paid or unpaid?”

“Paid, if you want to call it that.”

Erszébet nods approvingly, and is comforted by the knowledge that the all of two-hours of silent treatment Feliks has been giving her is coming to an end. He’s never been seriously mad at anyone more than three hours that she’s seen, even under the worst of circumstances. He doesn’t even seem to have a grudge against Gilbert, and he ran him over with his car.

They fill out their forms together, sifting through the endless paperwork of enrolling in summer classes. Feliks asks how to spell “mathematics” and misspells biochemistry, even though both terms are part of his degree. He’s seriously dyslexic. When they were in school in New York City, whenever Feliks was assigned literature to read in English classes, he’d be forced to scrounge around for an audio book form of it. If he couldn’t, it would be disastrous for his grades.

“Why do we even do forms by hand anymore?”

“What’s wrong with good old-fashioned pen and ink?”

“It doesn’t have spellcheck,” he replies with a sideways grin.

“Believe me, you’re not the only one who could use it sometimes. You should see my French exams,” she sighs, recalling a nasty professor who took off ten points because she placed the accent on the wrong vowel in a difficult word.

“Ready to go?” he asks, smacking his forms in a manila folder with his name labeled neatly on the cover. In stark contrast, Erszébet staples her forms haphazardly together and tosses the packet on top of his.

“Yeah, let’s go see Tino. We’re meeting at Matthew’s restaurant. Soup and Crackers Café.”

“Berwald’s not going to be there, right?”

“Unless you know something that I don’t know,” Erszébet replies as they walk out of the administration building and onto the sidewalk. “Why don’t you like him?”

“It’s a long story.”

“He’s not in the mob, is he?”

“Ha, ha, very funny,” Feliks replies, rolling his eyes and flipping some of his hair out of his eyes.

“But seriously, is he?”

“No. I just don’t like him.”

Erszébet can understand that. She doesn’t know Berwald well; she’s not sure that anyone does. She doesn’t know why on earth Tino’s been with him so long. They’ve been living together for years, and dating for much longer than that. To her as an outsider, he seems like a jealous, stoic, and non-emotional jerk. And additionally, from Feliks’ point of view, he’s an emotional manipulator who’s taking advantage of Tino’s kindness.

A few minutes later, they arrive at the café. Matthew greets them at the door. “Hi, Feliks and Erszi! What brings you here?”

“We’re meeting Tino for lunch.”

He smiles politely. “I’ll bring you guys some water. Take a seat wherever you like.”

The place is a little crowded but not so much that they have trouble finding an open table.

Tino arrives, looking only a little frazzled, only seconds later. “Hello,” he says brightly. “How are you all? It’s lovely weather.”

“That it is,” Feliks replies. “It hasn’t been this hot for years, and it’s not even July.”

Tino shrugs off his jacket, and Erszi’s eyes bulge. He has burns up and down his right arm. They look not too serious, but painful, and pretty recent. And he definitely didn’t have those last time they talked.

Before they can ask a question, Matthew comes by with his notepad and pen nestled in his curly blondish hair. “Have you decided on anything?”

“Cucumber sandwich would be great,” Feliks says without even glancing at the menu.

“Me as well,” Erszébet asks.

“I’ll have a chicken soup, please.”

“What? Are you crazy? It’s 32 degrees [Celsius]!” Feliks exclaims, gesturing towards the window.

“My throat’s a bit sore,” he answers, shrugging.

“Tino,” Erszébet begins, drawing in a breath. “We need to talk to you about Berwald.”

He blinks. “What about him? We had a fight; you and Feliks fight all the time and I don’t stage any interventions.”

“Did you tell him what you told me?” Erszébet asks, lowering the tone of her voice so the nearby tables can’t hear them.

Tino shifts uncomfortably in his chair, skin blanching despite the heat. “No. He doesn’t need to know.”

“How did you get those burns?” Feliks hisses.

Tino abruptly gets pissed. He has every right to be, in retrospect. “Erszébet! You apologised for accusing Berwald of such a thing! I can’t believe you have the audacity to-“

Erszébet makes a motion with her hands that she thinks might be calming. “I’m not accusing anyone of anything. But you understand our concern. You’re freaking about a fight, and then the next day you’re scorched. Just tell us what happened.”

“I plunged my hand into the sink to wash the dishes and the water was hot.”

“Food’s ready. It may be out of season, but the soup sure does look good!” Matthew says cheerily.

"Thanks, Matt,” Feliks says, smiling tensely.

Once Matthew is out of earshot, Tino crosses his arms confidently on the table, and sips delicately at his soup. “You’ve never liked him. You’ve resented him ever since I moved out.”

“I’m afraid history goes a bit deeper than that,” Feliks replies crossly. “He lived in my apartment building. Everyone was terrified of him. The word on the street was that he killed his cousin and dumped her body in the Baltic,” he says casually.

Tino clutches his fork with a death grip, and Erszébet can tell that Feliks has gone way too far. He’s crossed a line that even Tino won’t ignore. It’s taking every inch of his strength not to jump up and strike him across the face. “Take that back. You know what happened to his cousin? You want me to tell her what he’s told me? You remember Toris? I know you’re pretending you’ve never met him before, but everyone in that building remembers the nuclear fallout when you two went on the outs. He may not recognise you now, but he will when I tell him the whole story. All the terrible details.”

“Tino-“

“You know what happened to his cousin? She was murdered by Toris’s brother. I heard that he made little Toris clean up the blood. And he’s going to remember all of the terrible things that you did to him.”

Feliks loses control. He gets to his feet. “You can’t do that, you can’t do that! He’s trying to get away from his past, you can’t make him remember!” Everyone looks at Feliks, and he flushes a terrible shade of beet-pink. Matthew pokes his head out from the kitchen. Awkwardly, Feliks takes a seat, but he looks like he’s about to faint.

“I won’t,” Tino replies calmly.

Feliks exhales, relieved.

“But for his sake, not yours. Toris is a nice kid. We roomed together in boarding school. You’ve always been a selfish bastard,” Tino says pleasantly, stressing the last word viciously.

Erszébet’s jaw drops. Tino rarely curses, and when he does it's usually a cute-sounding Finnish word.

Tino drops a 100-dollar krona bill on the table (a/n that’s like 20$ or like 10 £) on the table and gets up from the table ceremoniously. “I’m sorry for leaving so soon, but I’m not sure I can continue this lunch in good faith,” he says decorously.

“We screwed up,” Feliks says after he’s left.

“That was on you,” Erszébet chides, but in a serious voice says. “What did you do to Toris? What happened in Kaliningrad? Why does this keep coming up?”

Feliks takes a deep breath. “Toris and I were friends. We lived in this dumpy apartment building, filled with mob bosses, illicit businesses, and a long list of people who had died in the vicinity,” he says in a rush. Feliks looks like he’s about to cry.

“What happened?”

“I let him get in trouble for something that we did together. I thought he was dead. I left right after."

“But he doesn’t recognise you now? That sounds impossible.”

“He doesn’t. When we lived in that building, my surname was Zielinski- I changed it as soon as I was at the age of majority. And when we moved away, I told him I was moving to Warsaw, not New York. I told him I was from a different city; I've got a whole spider web of lies."

“He’s not stupid, Fel. He knows its you.”

“No, he doesn’t. I lied.” He runs his fingers through his hair and refuses to make eye contact. “A lot.”

“Make it right.”

“He’ll hate me.”

“It’s better than a relationship based on foundation of dishonesty,” she informs him squarely, finishing her sandwich.

“What about you?” he asks defensively. “You’ve been vacillating between Roderich and Gilbert your whole life, not even including your crush on Vash.”

“Don’t make this about me,” she says, completely unperturbed. She’s not one afraid of the truth. She has been a bit indecisive about her love life since her very first boyfriend, but she’s always been an honest person (sometimes too honest) and she knows for a fact that it is always better to come clean.

Feliks and Erszébet pay the check and get out of there.

“Do you want to check out the new gardens at the park we like?” Feliks asks.

“Sorry, I’ve got a date.”

“What?!” he exclaims. “Do tell!”

“Nope. I’ll tell you how it went afterwards.”

“I thought you said honesty is the best policy!” Feliks complains, tying his hair into a ponytail.

“It is,” she says in a sing-song voice. “That doesn’t mean I have to tell you everything.”

It’s not actually a date- well, not at least in the traditional sense. She’s meeting Lili and some others at the language club, and bringing them some coffee. Some of them have been there the whole night trying to sort out some legal problems, and their best members have just been hired by governmental organisations, leaving them terribly short-staffed.

She steps inside, relishing the air conditioning and hanging her unneeded sweater on one of the hooks. “Hey, Erszébet,” Lili says, waving to her from a table where she’s nursing a huge stack of paperwork and at least twenty clipboards. Erszébet can barely make out the top of her head.

“You all settled in your apartment?” she asks conversationally.

“Yep, I just have to paint the bathroom. The previous owners apparently thought that bright salmon went wonderfully with the light blue tile,” she says lightly, giggling.

“Wow. I think Feliks mentioned something about our living room being painted black before he redid it.”

“That’s terrible, who would do such a thing?” she asks.

“Nocturnal rodents? Oh, wait, they’d clean up better,” she jokes, and Lili laughs.

“Mind giving me a hand with this? We just got ten thousand translator request forms. That’s not an exaggeration,” Lili says, patting a stack of files and booklets gently, almost affectionately.

“Sure. Do we need more help? I can call a few friends.”

“Considering we have to get these done by tomorrow at six a.m, that might be a good idea.” Erszébet looks at the clock on the wall behind Lili, squints at the small numbers, and sighs. Twelve hours.

“All right, I’m rounding up the minions,” she says, picking up her phone and opening up a new group chat. Cautiously, she adds the numbers of Gilbert, Feliks, Tino, Eduard, Berwald, Feli, Lovino, Antonio, and Toris. She realises full and well that it’s a terrible group of tangled alliances, friendships, romantic relationships, and angry hatred, but she knows that her friends will come through if it’s for a greater cause.

_Erszébet Héderváry: Please help! We have 10k applications at the language club and only two people to help sort and fill them out in less than twelve hours!_

_Gilbert Beilschmidt: ill b there after i finish class._

_Antonio Fernández Carriedo: lovi and I can come in an hour._

_Tino Väinämöinen: I’m right next door right now! I’ll be there as soon as I can! :)_

There are a dozen more responses within only a few seconds of each other. The only people who don’t reply are Berwald, who is probably out on the North Sea testing currents as she types, and Feliciano, who rarely has his phone charged. It was a long shot anyway.

“Thanks so much. Since I just moved here I don’t have a lot of phone numbers and I was nervous to bother anyone,” Lili says.

“Oh it’s no problem, and they don’t bite,” she replies casually and gets up to push some tables together.

“Three piles: translator requests we can’t service, ones that we’re recommending a government translator for, and ones that we can help with. Those that we can help with, we’ll fill out the sheets on possible options for helpers and times and dates that could work,” Erszébet muses, just as she finishes setting up three clusters of tables.

“I’ll start sorting,” Lili says, glancing down at one of her numerous clipboards and grabbing a stack of blue folders.

“We need some music,” Erszébet decides, and messes with the radio for a second before a nice upbeat pop song starts playing loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear.

“Hey, Feliks,” Erszi says without looking up from her file cabinet.

Feliks smiles weakly. “H-hi.” But he quickly collects himself. “What do you want me to do?”

“Sort these like I’ve laid out on the flow chart,” Lili says. “Please,” she adds sweetly.

“Finally, someone who understands organisation,” he murmurs, coughing sarcastically at Erszébet.

“Hey! I’m not that bad!” Erszébet protests.

“Whatever lets you sleep at night, my dear,” he replies.

The song changes. “This was Finland’s Eurovision song,” Feliks notes, dropping some folders on the leftmost table.

“Yeah and it sucked,” Gilbert shouts from the doorway.

“Take that back,” Tino and Eduard both say simultaneously from the side door.

“Let’s not start World War III,” Lili says. “This is why I like to stay out of Eurovision matters.”

“It helps when your country’s never had a song good enough to compete with,” Feliks points out.

“Oooohh,” Gilbert says, chuckling.

Lili maintains a polite expression but Erszébet can see murder in her eyes, and since the Liechtensteinerin girl has rarely expressed so much as a negative sentiment, she knows that it’s a serious affront. “And Poland didn’t participate either, as I recall.”

“Hey, we’re participating next year! 2014 will be the year of success!”

“Which stack do these go in?” Gilbert asks Erszébet, tossing a few files towards her station at the middle table.

“I dunno. Tino’s in charge,” she replies without fully making eye contact.

“C’mon Erszi. You didn’t even look at them,” he says. She can hear a bit of plead in his voice. She stiffens her resolve and takes the files from his hand. “We can’t provide law services. That’s the right table.”

An hour later, Antonio and Lovino show up, the latter of whom rather miffed by the whole affair, and by nine everyone except Berwald has showed up. Unfortunatley for her, Erszébet ends up working at a group of tables with Tino and Eduard, which is a situation she would very much rather avoid. Unfortunately for her though, a significant amount of the papers in this section are in Hungarian.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Tino says nervously. “He was supposed to be back a while ago.”

“Where is he?” Eduard asks curiously. His voice is a bit tense.

“He’s on a meteorology project in Gulf of Bothnia,” Tino replies nervously.

“Call his supervisor, we’ll cover for you,” Eduard says. “Don’t worry, go ahead.”

Tino thanks them sixty times before hurrying over to a solitary corner of the room and opening his phone.

“You should back off,” Erszébet tells him squarely.

“I was drunk,” Eduard replies stiffly. He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“You’re making him miserable. He thinks he did something wrong, and he’s positive that Berwald is going to break up with him.”

“Don’t worry, I’m moving to Copenhagen for my IT job, not Stockholm. You are not involved in this, anyway. You don’t know half the story, so stay out of it.”

“Talk to him. He deserves that,” Erszébet pleads with him.

Eduard blinks, and she can almost feel his conscience winning out. “Fine.”

Tino returns, clearly flustered. “He fell out of the boat. He has hypothermia, in a hospital in Osthammar, I’ve never even heard of that. Where is that? His boss says the doctors expect he’ll be fine, but I’m going to need to duck out, all right?”

“I’ll drive you,” Eduard volunteers. “Shouldn’t drive upset, you might get in an accident.” He doesn’t add that Tino is famed for his terrible driving.

“Thanks so much, Eduard. Do you mind if we leave now?”

There a few choruses of “Of course not Tino!” and “Go ahead, it’s important that you be there!” and within sixty seconds Eduard and Tino are out the door and in Eduard’s rental car.

“Poor thing, he doesn’t need any more stress in his life,” Erszébet muses.

“It’s so awk that Eduard is driving him,” Feliks notes, and their whole table area freezes, even Feliciano who is half asleep. They’ve all heard the rumours, and they all know that Berwald has some problems with jealousy.

_Shit._


	23. Chapter 23

When it is 2 a.m. and they have four hours to get everything done, no one is thinking about Eduard driving Tino, awkwardness associated with it, or the fact that Berwald might die. About half of them are delirious from the sheer amount of coffee they’ve ingested, and the other half are getting there one cup at a time. 

“We’re officially halfway done! Pick up the pace everyone!” Lili shouts. She’s turned into a pint-sized military commander, that just happens to have a lavender bow tied in her blond bob, and look not a day older than twelve. 

“I’m going to die,” Feliks complains, rubbing his head. 

“You’ve pulled all-nighters before.” 

“Only because audio books take so long to play,” he mumbles, slumping against the corner of the wall to post it note a big stack of files that he just got assigned. 

Erszébet surveys the room briefly as she comes back from the copy and record room. Antonio is intermittently sleeping and accomplishing nothing while awake. Lovino and Lili are definitely getting the award, if there was one, for the most work done. Lovi might have a bad attitude and a bad mouth, but at least he gets stuff done. Feliks and Toris are sorting. Gilbert, Feli, Ludwig, and herself are writing out the forms and stapling them to the files. In short, it could be better. 

“T minus four hours!” Lili says from her position at the sorting table. 

“We should really get some more people in this club,” Erszébet suggests tiredly. 

“It’s a little late to start recruiting now,” Feliks mumbles, yawn making his already heavily accented words difficult to tell apart. 

“We can make poster,” Toris suggests. 

“Or pamphlets,” Feli says. “There’s this really pretty girl in my graphic design class. I could ask her a favour, her eyes are so beautiful!” 

“I think it’s safe to say that any ideas for spreading the word about our club should be developed at a later date,” Lili says testily. 

“And probably approved by Tino,” Erszébet adds. 

“What happens if we don’t get these done?” Feliks asks. 

“The university revokes our club license,” Lili replies simply. 

“I’m going to make us a snack,” Feliciano declares sleepily, and no one stops him because it’s not like he was getting a lot done in the first place. Their helpers are dwindling, and so is their collective enthusiasm. 

Gilbert joins her at the table she’s currently working at, a light pink dusting his cheeks. “So-“ 

“Do you want to tag these?” she asks, interrupting. 

He blinks. “Sure,” he replies, grabbing the stack. Left with nothing to distract him with, she hopes that the uninteresting files keep him busy for at least a few more minutes. 

She opens a file that needs to be archived and reads the name of a woman from Bavaria. Annaliese Bader. The rest of the file is in German, a language she obviously can’t speak. 

“Can you fill the forms out? It’s in German.” 

“Of course,” he says, not without a bit of arrogance. “Ew, she’s Bavarian.” 

“What did you say, mein liebster Bruder?” Ludwig says from where he is stacking papers. 

“Ah, Lud, you’re always so defensive.” 

“Halt die Klappe! I don’t have the patience for you right now,” he shouts. 

Erszébet raises her eyebrows but doesn’t get involved in the brotherly argument. She finishes the paperwork on three more cases rather hurriedly, and then gets a drink of water. When she gets back Gilbert is sitting on the table, legs crossed haphazardly. 

“If I were less awesome, I would die of tiredness,” he declares. 

“You can live for like ten days without sleep, so I’m not getting my hopes up quite yet,” Erszébet replies, smiling to herself. 

“Aw, you want me dead? That’d be cute if it wasn’t painfully untrue.” 

“So you’re saying it would be cute if I actually wanted you dead?” 

“Trust me, that’s not cute. You should be scared,” Feliks warns Gilbert wisely. Erszébet is too tired to take any offense or even know if she should, so she laughs. 

“O czym ona mówi?” Toris whispers, eyes wide. 

“Ona z niego kpi, ale on na to zasługuje,” Feliks answers, and feels bad for Toris. His English is terrible, especially since he’s so tired, and from the looks of things he’s not following any of the conversations taking place around him. Feliks has been there. He’s been a stranger, a non-native speaker in a new country, and he remembers how disconcerting it was. 

“Are we almost done?” Feliks asks Lili as she makes her rounds about the tables, papers in hand. 

“Not quite. We have three hours, we’ll get it done,” she tells him certainly, but the only thing certain to anyone else is that this evening sucks. 

“Jak się czujesz?” Toris asks. 

“Nienajlepiej,” Feliks replies. “I want to go home,” he adds. 

“So does everyone,” Erszébet says mockingly from her table. 

“Zostaw mnie w spokoju!” Feliks snaps, and Erszi turns to face them with a confused expression on her face. She would be confused. After all, she doesn’t speak a word of Polish. Besides the curse words that he taught her in high school. 

“Sorry,” Feliks says without any real conviction, flipping his hand dismissively. 

Rolling her eyes, Erszébet returns to her flirtatious conversation with Gilbert, since it’s much more interesting than listening to nervous chatter in a language she can’t understand. “Got any plans tomorrow?” Gilbert is asking her. 

“I wish I did,” she replies. "So I could have a really good excuse for turning you down." 

“Harsh. Well now you have plans now. I'm thinking dinner? Lunch works too, but not breakfast, I've got classes in the morning,” he replies cockily. 

“Sorry, I’m not interested,” she replies as she finishes her fiftieth stack. She’s been counting, but the papers seem to be getting longer and longer, the forms more complex and complex. 

“Fine.” 

“Really? That’s it? No more pestering?” she prods. 

“I can respect your wishes,” he replies defensively, and Erszébet is impressed. She always, always presumes the worst of Gilbert because that’s what they do, presume the worst of each other and snap at each other. But he has some redeeming qualities, and maybe it’s because she’s sleep deprived and just got out of a relationship, but those qualities are looking a little more attractive. 

“If we finish in time,” she says, and lowers her voice so no one else can overhear, “Let’s go to your place. I heard you’re renting a new apartment that’s near here.” 

Gilbert grins. “Let’s make it a date.” 

“It’s not a date,” she informs him seriously. 

“Fine. A get-together.” 

She tilts her head in consideration, and decides that it’s good enough. 

Erszébet does not go home with Gilbert that night. He’s forgotten his keys, and they both end up in the copy room when it’s all said and done and Lili, Feliks, Toris, and the rest go home. It all goes downhill from there. Erszébet is no virgin, but she never thought she’d be sleeping with Gil of all people. They make fun of each other’s sexual stamina for a good ten minutes before anything actually happens, and then Erszébet groans as Gilbert’s mouth closes over hers. Gil, bless him, maybe it’s bad circulation or maybe his Germanic ancestry, has cold hands, feet, and face, but apparently his mouth is a different freaking story. He has narrow, nimble fingers, and they make quick work of her button-down. Gilbert blinks, and when he opens his eyes again, his shirt is a limp lump of fabric on the copy room floor, and Erszébet is on his knees, her mouth only a few centimetres away from his fly. She presses his mouth to the clothed bulge, and he gasps, gasps with a shuddery spasm as he instinctively entwines his fingers into her long brown hair, pushing her even closer. Erszébet reaches up and slides his arms over Gil’s vaguely muscular shoulders, pulling him down on top of her. Gilbert fixes his mouth to Erszi’s bare collarbone and his hands sliding down the lean muscles just above her hipbones. 

Gilbert lowers his hands, just a few inches, but what a difference those few inches made. Erszébet arches into his touch as he puts his hands all over her, and then leans up, wrapping fingers around her neck and taking both of their breath away in a searing kiss. When he breaks away for a second Erszi presses back and swipes her tongue along his teeth, and they french on the floor of the copy room. They also have sex on the copy room floor. Protection is used of course, but otherwise there is not a whole lot that either of them can be proud of, apparently, because Erszébet leaves after they both pass out from sleep deprivation. She grabs her belongings from the main room of the space their club rents out, and flicks off the lights in the copy room, deciding two things. Well, three. For one, he looked kind of cute sleeping. The second was that karma’s a bitch and he was going to have a terrible backache and neck problems when he woke up. Serves him right. The third thing she decides far more tentatively. That he had been a pretty good lay. Rather satiated and really tired, she bites the bullet and pays for a cab to drive her home. 

“Nice weather we’re having,” the cabbie says in accented Swedish. 

“Sure thing,” she replies. He drops her off outside the apartment building. Erszébet counts her change wrong and tips him too generously, but she can’t be bothered to care that much as she stumbles up the staircase with a pounding headache.


	24. Chapter 24

-Two weeks later- 

Erszébet prides herself on being an assertive young woman. She doesn’t sit around waiting for people to become interested in her, or avoid acting on feelings if she feels them. She’s halfway through giving herself a silent and very scripted peptalk when she realises she left her house key in her other bag. 

“Damn it,” she curses, and rings the doorbell. She can’t remember if it works or not. After there’s no response, she raps her knuckles against the solid door. Their apartment’s previous owners might have had unusual taste in paint colours, but at least they bought a reasonable door. She presses her ear to the door, she’s pretty sure that he’s home, and yep, loud Polish music. Nie Zmieniajmy Nic, probably. 

“Feliks!” she yells into the keyhole. “It’s too late after a breakup to be playing loud music! You’re only allowed to do that for three days, remember? We put that in our roommate contract!” 

She hears some stray words but none that she can understand through the door, and the music is turned off a moment later. 

“Hello! Are you going to leave me out here all night?” she shouts into the door. 

Feliks opens the door, already mid-eyeroll. Well, some things never change. His hair’s tied back into a messy ponytail. “A while ago, people invented these things called keys. Maybe you could try it out, I hear they give thirty-day free trials.” 

“You’re sarcastic today,” she says, grabbing the bottle of milk from the fridge and nudging it shut with her hip. “And I’ll have you know I forgot my bag. The brown one.” 

“And that music? Those type of trashy sad pop songs aren’t allowed to played post-breakup after two weeks, Feliks. Get yourself together.” 

“It’s not trashy!” he exclaims, voice cracking and going into only-dogs-can-hear-range. “You don’t even know the language, so I’ll have _you_ know that it’s not a sad breakup song.” 

“Oh yeah?” 

“And it’s not even in Polish, by the way.” 

“Really? Are you branching out? Let me guess- it’s in Silesian,” she says mockingly, pouring herself a glass of milk. 

“Ha ha. I can like other music besides Polish stuff,” he says defensively, crossing his arms childishly. 

“No you can’t. We went through this two years ago.” 

“It’s a happy song,” another voice, very different from Feliks’s, says suddenly, and Erszébet simultaneously drops her almost empty glass of milk and yells, “HOLY SHIT!” at the top of her lungs. Everyone in the room jumps. 

Toris throws up his hands in front of his shoulders. “Ah, I am so sorry, I should have announced myself.” 

“I’ll get the broom and dust pan,” Feliks says while Erszébet is left to nurse her uncomfortably elevated heartbeat and blood pressure, and suffocating awkwardness. She was just going on and on about break up songs and sad music, and now they’re back together? Yikes, she’s having an off day. 

“Don’t step on glass. It will hurt a lot,” Toris says seriously. 

Erszébet laughs. “Funnily enough I figured that,” she says casually. 

He looks at her blankly. “Funny?” he says confusedly. “It wouldn’t be funny, it would hurt I said.” 

“Okay, thanks,” she says resignedly. He’s either dead serious and hates jokes or he didn’t understand what she said. Or both, she supposes. 

“So, um, what was the song you were listening to called?” 

He visibly relaxes. “Mes čia. It was almost in Eurovision. It is an old song.” 

“Ah, so it’s in Lithuanian?” 

“Yes,” he replies, and another tense moment later, Feliks returns with the dustpan and the broom. Thank god, the awkwardness of that situation was palpable, Erszébet notes. She sweeps up the broken glass, and tries to avoid getting annoyed when Toris apologises six times for scaring her. 

“It’s fine, Toris, really,” she says. 

Toris looks at his watch suddenly, and lunges to grab his bag. “Muszę iść, do jutra Feliks,” he says, smiling slightly, and then adds, “Bye Erszébet,” on his way out. 

After the door shuts, Erszébet looks at Feliks with raised eyebrows. 

“He forgave me,” he says in a self-satisfied way. 

“Is he always so awkward?” she asks tentatively. 

“No, he’s really uncomfortable speaking English now. His remedial English teacher told him he was stupid so now he’s depressed about his English skills or something,” Feliks says in a rush, looking anywhere but her face. 

“Wow, that’s terrible,” Erszébet says. Teachers have a responsibility to foster growth not stunt it, she believes, and teachers who abuse their privileges and influence to hurt students have a special place in hell waiting for them. 

“Yeah, he’s pretty wrecked about it,” Feliks says, sympathy on his features. He got a haircut, and his now chin length hair extenuates his angular eyes and makes him look perpetually clinical and suspicious. It’s a little unnerving, not that she’d tell him so. 

“So, are you going to ask Gil out?” Feliks inquires curiously, sparkle back in his eyes. 

“Of course not,” is her immediate response. 

“Really? Because I think someone has a crush,” he taunts. 

“Don’t say that ever again, or god help me I will shave your eyebrows while you’re sleeping.” 

“That’s harsh,” he says. “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.” 

“I bet you can’t even name what Shakespeare play that’s from,” she says, deflecting his jibe easily. 

“A Doll House?” Feliks guesses wildly, and Erszébet has to try really hard not to crack up. 

“That’s Ibsen," she informs him. 

“Forgive me if I’m not a literature major,” he retorts, leaning against the counter with crossed arms. 

“You’d be a terrible literature major,” she agrees, biting into a granny smith apple, and recoiling. 

“Why do you even buy these? They’re too sour!” 

“Suit yourself,” he replies with a shrug, taking the apple and taking a bite from the other side of it. A few seconds later he says, “Oh yeah, I forgot to mention it earlier, but Tino asked us if we would come to dinner with him and Berwald, 

“Because I definitely need more awkwardness in my life,” she groans. 

“You have to come though, because I agreed to come, and you’re not letting me go alone. I’ll have to eat his terrible food alone.” 

They both laugh. Poor Tino. He tries so hard, but his creative cooking usually results in everyone at the table disguising gags behind their napkins. 

“Fine. And I asked if they’d invite Gilbert too, for your sake, and they said they’d be glad to,” he adds, raising his eyebrows at her. 

“You think you’re crafty, don’t you?” 

“Nope, I’m completely innocent,” he replies with a high-pitched giggle. 

“That’s a laugh,” she mutters, and finishes her sour apple. 

Dinner goes as planned. Tino is lovely as always, and fusses over Berwald since he has a broken arm from getting dragged back onto the boat. Gilbert is Gilbert, but he’s definitely been much less mature at times, so she is begrudgingly thankful for the small miracles. Feliks fills in the awkward pauses, as is his style, and the food Tino makes is disgusting. Actually, she amends silently, his bread is okay. Otherwise, nearly unbearable. 

They’re saying their goodbyes and leaving the apartment, and she forgot her phone but it is abundantly clear that Berwald and Tino would like some personal time so she’ll pick it up tomorrow. The night is young but she is tired, and Erszébet feels old. She’s going to be a fourth year university student after the summer ends, and it’s going to be weird. All of her friends live in Stockholm, but her parents want her to come back to New York, so it’s a bit of a toss up where she’ll be going and what she’ll be doing after college. Erszébet is a statistician, and uncertainties make her, well, uncertain. Uncomfortable. Uneasy. 

“Toris and I are going out, you have your key, right?” Feliks asks. 

“Yeah, I think so,” she replies, digging into her bag for a moment. Yep, it’s right at the bottom. A dirty, banged-up piece of metal, but at least she’ll be able to get into her apartment. She hasn’t been locked out for more than an hour yet and she doesn’t plan to start now. 

“Ah, young love,” Gilbert says. It’s hard to tell if he’s being actually wistful or just mocking. 

“Please. You’re like four years older than we are,” Feliks retorts, and then he’s off, holding his phone to his ear and already speaking rapid-fire Polish into the receiver. 

“Have you seen the Lego Movie?” Gilbert asks her, scratching his neck. 

“You have got to be kidding me.” Erszébet closes her eyes for a second. She figured he might try something while they were walking back to their end of the city, but the Lego Movie? Wasn’t the target demographic for the plastic building blocks like five to twelve? And here she was thinking that he might be finally growing up, at least a little bit. 

“That’s what I thought too, but Toni said that Lovino actually smiled like twice during it, so it’s got to be good, right?” 

Erszébet stares at him resignedly, but concedes that he had a point. Although she’s not sure how on earth Antonio convinced Lovi to watch such a movie with him. 

“Morgan Freeman’s in it. Come on, that man has a voice like aged honey.” 

“I’m pretty sure honey isn’t supposed to age,” she replies. 

“Are you seriously asking me out to go see the Lego Movie?” she asks him, putting a hand on her hip. 

He grins. “I’m only asking you out if you want me to be asking you out.” 

“Fine, but let’s watch it at my flat.” 

“You’re embarrassed to be seen with me in public?” he asks teasingly. 

“Actually because that black stew Tino gave us will be haunting my digestive tract for decades to come, and I’ll probably need access to a bathroom in the next two hours.” 

He doesn’t even blink. She’s pretty sure that nothing she says can shock him anymore. Which is too bad, because she makes some pretty funny jokes with shock value. 

Gil puts an arm around her, and when she feels a fluttery nervous feeling just below her diaphragm she decides that either the stew is repeating on her already, or her heart is a lost cause, because god-damnit she is interested in Gilbert Beilschmidt. He may be a world-class loser, but at least he doesn’t deny it too much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a wild ride, and it might have taken me more than a full year to actually finish this, but here it is! I hope you enjoyed. I'm going to be continuing this verse soon, so look out for updates in the Stockholm series if you liked this.  
> Also, I don't own the Lego Movie, nor am I commercially endorsing it. But it was a pretty funny movie.


End file.
